ORGILL LOVE!: Chance

We have been looking for a dog for some time now. Back in July or August we finally, after much consideration of what we wanted in a dog, found the perfect one.

chance at 5 months old

He is a purebred Italian Greyhound. Small, fast, loyal, comfort loving, obedient, and all the other qualities we wanted in a pet dog. His name is Chance. We have anticipated his arrival into our home now for 3 long months. The kids worked hard all summer to save their money so they could help pay for him. Ken and I made some modifications to our home. Now after all the time and preparation we finally have him. Here at last! He is perfect, we love to have him around and the kids do not want to do anything but admire, play with, sleep with, read books with, watch movies with, go places with, yes you named him, Chance. Basically, so long as Chance is involved we are all happy!

As you may know, this makes us an even number family again. We now have three cats, Tigger (boy), Kisses (girl), and Daisy (girl.) One dog, Chance (boy.) Two men, Ken and Zac, and two women Dawn and Lexi. So as you can see, we are four for four. Sounds like a good even number to me, I guess that means we are really done this time!!!

One of the fun things we got to do in preparation for Chance is to put "fake nails" on our girl cats. Neither of them have been declawed, and that was our other option. So, we decided to try out the fake nail thing, after all, Lexi and I like the pampering so why would't our girl cats like it too right? Ha! Kisses immediately tried to gnaw them off, only after Daisy let her know she could no longer boss her around. Then, Daisy was humbled when we turned around and did the same thing for her. I thought it might slow down the mouse hunt, but to my dismay, they still like to bring me their offerings. Kisses even brought home a pet snake one afternoon! Lexi thinks it is pretty cool to put colored nails on her kitties, and I think it is a less cruel thing than having their nail ripped out and their only defense outdoors completely taken from them. They won't let us dress them up in clothes after all, or for that matter even collars, so this is the next best thing. Lexi is amazing with all the animals. She has this deep love for all living beings and it really shines with her pets. She is considering entering in the Junior Showmanship shows with Chance, but we will have to take that one step at a time. It is a completely foreign language to me, which I am slowly picking up on with the help of our new dog and his previous caregiver. Lexi will need some training to prepare for such and event and obviously I am not the one to do it!

Another fun thing we did was put up a chain link fence in our back yard. This will act as Chance's safe house for potty and short breaks outside. Ken and I have never had any knowledge or experience in this field, but after this, we feel like pro's. We decided to rent an auger and a cement mixer for the occasion. Zac of course loved to help with the drilling for the post holes. Because we have so many trees in our yard we felt we needed to have some heavy duty machinery to do the majority of the manual labor. I guarantee it would not have gotten done otherwise. Even with all four of us leaning with all our might as it drilled down through the roots ken still had to get out his chain saw and saw off some of the bigger roots to get it to go. There were of course a few mistakes, and learning opportunities along the way, but in the end we feel we made a pretty swell little dog run. We even put up lattice under the deck, partly for Chance's safety and partly for aesthetics. In addition, we planted some new grass and put in some new sprinklers. The sprinkler lines that were there before had been broken somewhere along the way with all the growing roots around them so Ken had to dig them out and install new lines and heads to make it work. At the beginning of the summer we thought Ken's work bench would be the only major project we did this year to improve our house. Ha, were we wrong! Ken was happy to get to use his tools again. Although he always complains a bit during the project, it brings such a sense of accomplishment afterwards that he always goes back for more! I enjoy being his busty helper to hand him the tools and try to stay one step ahead of him as far as what he will need next. I try to do some of the manual labor sometimes, but after a few seconds of frustration he always steps in and does the "mans" work. Lucky me!!!

New sprinkler line

Ken tilling before we plant the grass seed

Filling in the gaps...

Ken and Zac digging holes

All lined out, ready for cement!

The hole, 2 feet deep through rocks, roots and dirt.

All done, time for BBQ!

Front gate

Lattice under deck

Back gate

So now after a lot of preparation on many levels, here we are, proud parents once again! We can hardly contain our excitement, just ask us and we'll tell you all about it, again and again if you let us!

chance at 8 months

his first visit to our home