A Critterful Fourth

Turnout for the annual Sunnywood Estates Independence Day parade took a major hit last year; this year’s attendance was up slightly but still a far cry from parades of yore (by “yore” I mean the pre-pandemic past). What you can’t see in the video are those who didn’t march but sat in their front yards to watch, so the numbers are larger than is apparent. We were there with Mister B, and a good time was had by all.

I shouldn’t get ahead of events, but we’re trying to adopt a pair of female miniature dachshunds. We decided we wanted to get a companion for Mister B, who turns 13 next month. We put the word out to friends and acquaintances, and Saturday the man who services our pool told us about these dogs. We were thinking of one dog, an adult as opposed to a puppy, but these two come as a package … that is if the couple looking to adopt them out decide we’re right for them.

After the morning parade, we drove to a Sabino Canyon neighborhood to visit the dogs and their humans. Although they aren’t litter-mates, they’re the same age, 1 ½ years old, and have grown up together. The couple they live with adopted (their term is “rescued”) them from a 90-year-old man who couldn’t care for them, but the couple have other dogs and want to find these two a good home.

The smaller of the two girls, Wiggles, is a short-hair black & tan. Peanut is, I think, a piebald dapple, a type prone to blindness in later life. Our first dachshund, Shatzi, went blind when she was around 8 years old, but it didn’t seem any kind of impediment to her and she got along just fine. We can certainly handle it should it happen to Peanut.

Can you tell we loved the dogs on first sight? I hope we pass muster with their current mom and dad, who are particular about who might adopt them. We visited for an hour; they’re coming to visit us at our home Saturday morning. But wait, there’s more: they mentioned having us over for another visit after that. In addition to the visits, they want to finish training the dogs, who were more or less feral when they got them: they’ve got them housebroken, eating healthy food on a regular schedule, and over their fear of other dogs and humans, but want to finish leash-training them before letting them go. With the visits and training, it’ll be at least two weeks before we can take them home. That is, as I said, if we pass the test.

Well, here’s hoping we do.

I don’t know if our next-door neighbors had grandkids over for the 4th or what, but they started setting off what sounded like full-up sticks of dynamite as soon as it got dark last night, and kept it up for a nerve-rattling 30 minutes. Mister B sat on the end of the dog couch nearest me so I could rest my hand on his back, and after a while nodded off, even as booms and bangs continued to shake our windows.

No, Mister B didn’t come with us to visit his potential new sisters, and I don’t think their mom and dad plan to bring them here when they visit on Saturday (update: Donna tells me they do). Mister B knows something’s up, of course, because he could smell them on our clothing when we came home, but as intuitive as he is I expect two new dogs moving in, should we get them, will come as a shock. But as with the fireworks (and the gunfire every New Year’s Eve), we think he’ll adjust.