We hadn’t planned to own more than one Bull Terrier again.  The last female we’d brought into our home hated Malcolm.  The whole eight months she lived here, the merciless Mercy tried to kill him.  Although Malcolm took her murder attempts with good humor, we couldn’t handle it in our small house.  Mercy is the dog who pulled the entire back off our sofa from the inside of her crate, a feat we never did figure out, but my theory is that Malcolm helped her.  I’m sure he gave her an end of the material to tug, egged her on, and then sat back waiting for her to catch hell.  Fortunately, she was a young, pretty girl.  Her breeder was glad to take her back and find her a home without another dog in it.

     Then Sadie came into our lives.  Dear Hubby had never shown an interest in colored Bull Terriers but this one stole his heart.  When I rescued her from a shelter, she showed obvious signs of abuse and neglect.  I keep the rescue dogs at a distance while they are with us.  Early on when I began rescuing Bull Terriers, I learned not to become too attached to them the hard way.  It hurt too much to give them up to a home if I did, and I didn’t have room for more than two permanent dogs.

     Sadie was shy where Malcolm was outgoing they were suited to each other.  She grew more outgoing and loving over the years.  This was good.  On the other hand, Malcolm did introduce her to monkey business and she became a real pro.  Not good.

     Sadie was the dog who ate the five-foot square area of vinyl floor in my kitchen.  These days, I’m smarter, now I have a ceramic tile floor in my kitchen.

     Malcolm adored Sadie, she adored DH and Malcolm, and I wasn’t surprised the day DH came home with a new collar for her along with her own shiny, new dog license.

     “I guess she’s staying,” I said when he showed them to me.

     “She loves us.”

     “And, she hasn’t tried to bump off Malcolm.”  I looked at the two dogs curled up together on the sofa.  “It looks like we’re a two dog family again.”

     In an earlier post, I mentioned how Patty came into our lives.  Her owner, who’d decided that she was too much to handle, dumped her here five years ago.  The man said he had purchased her (for an exorbitant sum) from a breeder in Bucharest, Romania.  He promised to bring or send us her shot records, registration papers, and other necessaries.  It was no surprise to us when none of it ever arrived.  In fact, once he dumped her here we never heard from him again.  I left a ton of voice-mail messages on his phone and he never called back. 

     The former owner had named our girl Cleopatra, which in no way suited her, in our house she quickly became Patty.  Peppermint Patty, Miss Patty, Patty cakes, our little Romanian princess…can you tell she’s loved?  We got a sweet outgoing girl who balances Gavin’s shyness.  She is Dear Hubby’s baby girl, Gavin’s baby sister and best friend, and when she can’t have DH, she comes to me (the Boss) for loving. 

     When she arrived, along with an ear infection, Patty was going into her first heat.  At the time, Gavin was not neutered.  Poor Gavin, we made the decision that since he hated the show ring he might as well be neutered and there was no better time like then to do it. 

     Before spaying Patty, we had to wait for her to go out of heat.  After her incision healed, we let the two of them meet each other without gates or crate doors in between them.  They immediately took to each other, which is somewhat surprising since Patty doesn’t like any other dogs.