I'll give you a dollar if you can guess how many times I mop my laundry room every week.
Oh, alright, not a REAL dollar. How about a Bonus Buck? If you ask my kids, they will tell you that a Bonus Buck is better than a dollar any day. But I digress.
Meet Chance:
Chance is 17.
That is 119 to you and me.
And that would explain the grey hair. And the dental problems.
And the incontinence.
Chance is my dear, sweet hubby's dog. It was a package deal.
(Who could say no to a deal like that?!?)
I've known Chance for 12 years of his life. I have come to the conclusion, after 12 years of getting to know his little Wiener-dog self, that Chance is a cat. He has nine lives.
At least 9.
In February of 1999, Chance suffered the fate that so many dogs in his breed suffer. We came home from a dance competition and found him paralyzed from his mid-back on down. (Do wiener dogs have waists?) Anyway, he had the standard Dachshund back surgery and experienced a full recovery. Well, except for when he would run fast and his back end would try to pass up his front end because he couldn't quite feel what was up back there anymore.
Even worse than getting paralyzed, Chance had to go through the horrible ordeal of welcoming kids into the family. Here is a terribly lit photo of Noah hangin' with Chance when he was a baby. Note Chance's expression. It says,
"if you ever do this to me again, the new carpet gets it! Woof."
I'm talking about Chance's expression here.
Not Noah's.
And I have come to learn, over the years, that he wasn't kidding. After Keira came along, he became third fiddle. Well, probably more like forth fiddle.
The combination of getting older and hiding from site because he was not much of a fan of babies, made him a little, shall we say, ornery. He never really was one to bark when he had to go outside.
Now, you let him outside, he will bark to come in so he can go pee on the carpet.
He has made his way from sleeping in the bed, to sleeping in the floor, to sleeping in a crate, to sleeping in the laundry room. I start my morning every day by opening the laundry room door to see how many presents he has left me overnight. There are usually several.
He is such a little giver.
He got really sick this summer. So sick, that we couldn't imagine that he would pull through.
But he did.
And I kept mopping.
A couple of weeks ago, he got really sick again. Nothing would stay down. Or in. For about 3 days.
Good times.
But once I finally got a can of chicken broth in him, he sprang back to life.
This is one tough little Wiener. And as much as I would like to be able to put my mop away for a few days, I will miss him terribly when he is gone. I mean, did you see that cutie-pie little face up there?
Now if you will excuse me. Chance is outside barking.
I think he needs to come in to go potty.
