Our three pups, Sophie the Newfoundland, Gracie the Golden Retriever, and Samson the Newfoundland (Brown) add so much joy to our lives on a daily basis; we could not be more loved than we are by these three loyal creatures. ❤

I love having dogs in my life and have had a least one for pretty much every year of my entire life.  I had a gorgeous German Shepherd as a child, her name was Nikki, and she is what awakened my deep seeded adoration for anything with 4 legs. 🙂

Here is a picture of Nikki:

My hubby and I have had many dogs in the 30+ years that we’ve been married.  Here is a collage picture of all of the pups that we’ve had the privilege to be loved by and to love. ❤ They include:

• Shelby – Golden Retriever
• Sadie – Husky
• Tori – Rhodesian Ridgeback
• Keisha – Toy American Eskimo

We had one more *very* special girl that I didn’t include in that collage, her name was Maddy and she was a Bernese Mountain Dog.  Here is picture of Maddy:

I will take just a second to explain why this precious girl touched our hearts so very much! She had many health problems throughout her years on this earth and unfortunately she only lived to be 6-1/2 years old.  It all started out with horrible hip dysplasia (at 6 months of age…so, so young…can we talk about backyard breeders?  Well, that is a whole different subject that I’m pretty passionate about but will not lament upon here…just know, that all of Maddy’s health problems stem from poor breeding). 😥  Anyway, we had both of her hips replaced…two separate surgeries 6 months apart.

After that, one health problem cropped up after the other, to name just a couple, allergies to *every*thing & what finally took her from us MegaEsophagus.  I will not go into detail about that awful condition here, just know, it was a fight to keep Maddy healthy and aspirating pneumonia, a complication from MegaE, is what finally took her from us.  All that said, she lived a very full and loving life with us–she touched our hearts from the moment we said hello to her till the moment we had to say goodbye. ❤ Maddy gets her own collage here:

 

***We MISS you Maddy-Girl***

All righty–There you have it…My life with my dogs in my past, very full, very loving, and wonderfully enriched because of what they gave to me through the years.

Back to the present day now:

Yesterday, my hubby and I sat down to brush our 3 beauties because dontchaknow it is “BLOW YOUR WINTER COAT” (Spring) Season here in our house.  I was getting quite sick of chasing those doggie hair tumbleweeds around the house with the vacuum (I vacuum at least 2 -3 times a week at this time of year).  SO, we managed to get our creaky bodies down onto the floor with them (not as easy as it used to be…lol. 😉  <~~~ Only half kidding there. 😉  And we went to work on them with all of the tools needed to brush out undercoat, de-matt those matts that we came across, and a pair of scissors might have been in use as well to trim up some “Angel Wings” that Samson likes to grow…You can see said wings in the picture below (that big swath of hair right in front of his back leg):

Anyway, here was the end result…

People ask me all of the time how we get our pups to pose to prettily…Well, the big secret is NILLAS (Vanilla Wafers). They LOVE Nillas…W-e-l-l…let me rephrase that, the girls Gracie and Sophie LOVE Nillas…Sam could take or leave them–He is NOT food motivated at all as you will see in the following pictures. 😉

So, here comes the Nillas–Gracie and Sophie are quite excited, Sam, eh, not so much…lol…

The “WAIT” command was given, Gracie and Sophie were listening but focused on those Nillas…Sam, well, he was napping. 😉 

Then, Sophie just couldn’t contain herself any longer and she scarfed her Nilla right up and down the hatch it went.  Gracie was still in wait mode, bless her heart. And Sam, well, he had now entered REM sleep. 😉 

These three just fill my heart with love and make me giggle each and every day–I do love them so very much!!

AND one more picture that might put a little smile on your face today…

OH dear me…Yes, the word “challenging” does come to mind. 😉 😉

***Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unopened***

Until next time, y’all take good care! ❤

Arlynn ❤