June 15, 2010.

Today is Rudy-dog's birthday! If anyone is reading my blog, I'm sure you'll roll your eyes a bit at this post. But, today is my dog's 7th birthday! Here is a baby-pic of Rudy. This was taken the day we brought him home. He was 10 weeks old. My mom gave Rudy to my husband as a gift. At the time, I was totally against having a dog. For one thing, we had two cats at the time who had been our pets for over 15 years. I just didn't want a dog coming into the home and torturing them..which dogs love to do with cats. Plus, at that time Chris and I were living in Illinois and we both worked in Chicago. We were gone almost 10 hours a day. It wasn't fair to the dog to have to be cooped up that entire time. Plus, I knew while I was working I would be worried about the dog being cooped up the whole time.

But, anyway, he came into our lives in June of 2003. And his puppy-stage was rough. He chewed up stuff, put holes in my clothes. I hired a dog-walked at the cost of 10.00 a day to come and let him out while we were working. And I have to say, the first 6 months with Rudy were not fun..not fun at all. Then, after about a year he began to lose his puppiness and became a more grown-up dog. He still barks like a lunatic when a car pulls into the driveway...but, that is just Rudy.

He has become a best friend to my husband. After Chris' accident he was pretty depressed and just not the same. My mom gave Rudy to Chris partly because of this. And Rudy and Chris have become best buddies. When I am home with just the dogs, Rudy will watch out the window for Chris to come home. Once home, Rudy will then relax and not keep his vigil. I dread the day Rudy is not with us, I really wonder how Chris is going to take that.

I really never thought I would become so attached to a dog. We adopted our other dog, Charlotte, three years ago. She was a rescue from an animal shelter. I was worried how Rudy would accept her because he seemed happy being an only-dog. But, he has such a good nature that he accepted her with no problem. He wasn't real happy, but now he and Charlotte are friends. We take them to the vet together and if the vet takes Charlotte out of the room, Rudy gets upset.

So, that is a brief story of Rudy. Our motto is..."never a dull moment with Rudy". He truly makes our live interesting!