Dogs. Gotta love 'em.

I have two: Zenith, a 10 y/o Norwegian Elkhound, and Belle, a 5 y/o Murfreesboro Mix. (I think she's mostly German Shepherd with a little Lab thrown in. She has webbed toes.) We got Belle because 1)Zenith had let us get robbed, and 2) we thought she was lonely. (Turns out, though, she likes being by herself.)

Zenith was a pet shop dog. We had never intended to buy a dog from the pet shop, but we always looked in the window. She kept getting bigger, the cage didn't, and the price kept going down. We wondered what would happen to her if no one bought her. So we did a little research on Elkhounds. They are often described as being stubborn. Well, we didn't really think about that, and Zenith came home with us for well under $200.

Stubborn? STUBBORN? Ha! You would think this girl is deaf sometimes. Well, she's not. She just has a mind of her own. (Like us.)She was fairly destructive as a puppy and hard to train, probably from being in a pet shop kennel for so long. One night things were awfully quiet, and I went back to the bedroom to see what she had gotten into. I found her sitting amid a flurry of hot-pink feathers ---- the remnants of a slain feather duster. She had them stuck to her nose. The duster had only cost me fifty cents and I just couldn't scold her with those pink feathers on her muzzle.

The first time Mister got out his guitar, Zenith barked at it as if it were an intruder. She got over it, until I got an accordion. She's also afraid of thunder and fireworks.

Belle, on the other hand, is a bonafide pistol. Being mostly Shepherd, she likes to herd Zenith around. Well, Z doesn't like that very well and once in awhile that results in a little tussle. Belle is one of those dogs that looks right at you all bright-eyed when you talk to her. She was pretty scrawny for about three years but she finally filled out and grew in a nice glossy coat.

We also have a kitty named Thumper, who hides behind the washing machine when strangers come to the house...