Dog Tails - The Twins

After our beloved Yoda died, my husband and I cried and held each other as we agreed that it would be many years before we even thought about getting another dog.  We were truly heartbroken.

We went home and packed away all of her toys, her dog bed, gave her food and treats away, and tried not to notice how empty and quiet our house had become.

We went to work, went sadly about our lives, and five days later, we were sitting in the local IHOP when I got the phone call.

A local rescue asked if we'd be willing to pick up two large German Shephard sisters from a kill shelter where they would have been euthanized due to lack of space just before Christmas.  One owner had them for their entire lives.  They were sisters who had never been separated.  

It was right around the December holidays, and they would need to be transported to a temporary kennel while they waited to be adopted.  They had spent all of their lives together and were completely bonded to each other at age 7.

Over breakfast, I asked Rob if we could bring them home, just to foster them.  He said, "No."  and went back to eating his pancakes.  I nodded.  I understood.  It was too soon.

A few moments later,he looked at me and said, "You've been so sad since Yoda died.  Would this make you happy?"  It would.

So a few days later, my rescue friend and I went to pick them up from the shelter.  It was a cold, dreary day,and my beautiful shephards fur were matted and oily.  They smelled and were filthy.  They looked sad.

We drove them right to my friend's house where she spent the next 3 hours scrubbing, brushing, buffing, primping, clipping their nails and cleaning their ears.  She told me to come back later, and when I did, I found two furry beautiful queens waiting for me upon my arrival.

I took them home while they huddled together in my backseat and looked out the window.  We all went inside and I sat cross legged on the floor next to their 2 doggie beds and started playing with their toys.  They ran around my living room sniffing everything, and then settled into my lap.  

It's hard to describe the pain I was still working through from losing Yoda.  My heart was broken.  I was already beginning to love my twin foster girls, though, in a different way.

Foxy is thinner, and has a nose like a dolphin which she has no problem poking people with when she wants to be petted.

Roxy steals socks.  She's our big girl, and she has a growing collection of socks that she has stolen from our bedroom.  She has gotten really good about sneaking them out of a drawer or hamper without us noticing.

When Rob came home from work, he sat down on the floor and played with them, too.  I took a few awful pictures of them to be used on the rescue's website so that people could see how cute they were.  Would folks be willing to adopt them out together,or would circumstances force the rescue to separate them to make them easier to adopt?  I agonized over it for the entire weekend.

Finally, it came time to pack them into the car to bring them both to an adoption event.  They looked at me.  I could not imagine either or both not coming back to my house that night.  How would I handle the one dog left behind who would be heartbroken?  

I couldn't.  My father and husband suggested that we bring them both to an adoption event and "Take the dog who doesn't get adopted."  I ignored them. When my husband asked me again, "Would this make you happy?"  I said, "Yes."  

We kept them both and they officially became Roxy and Foxy Novak. They became ours.

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