So then this happened.
Sal and Beau, July 2023
We are dog people. We haven’t had a dog in 9 years and it was time. Emily and I have always had large dogs but when we took care of a friend’s dachshund/corgi mix for a year, we realized how fun small dogs can be. They’re sure easy to bring with you. So we started looking for miniature dachshunds and these two came home this month. Beau is the cream-colored dog and he is an adult of about a year and a half. Sal is a puppy born in May. They’re both long-haired miniature dachshunds and will be about 10 pounds when fully grown. (Beau is fully grown, but he is a bit underweight.)
Sal is almost 10 weeks old now and she is taking the world by storm. I’m constantly amazed at how she has no fear and explores absolutely everything with joy and abandon. There is no better model for me at this moment in time. She is absorbing vast amounts of information every day and she is doing a pretty great job at remembering a lot of it.
Sal exploring the back yard
Beau sunning himself on my lap
Beau has not had as fortunate a life thus far. He has lived in a breeders kennel for his 1.5 years of life and he is afraid of almost everything. When he came home with us even a mosquito landing on his fur would make him whip around to see who was behind him. He was skittish and absolutely anything could send him into a roaring panic. He has had ten days to get used to an environment where there isn’t anyone competing for resources or chasing him in an enclosure he can’t get out of. And he is learning every day that the world can be an okay place. A couple days ago he wagged his tail for the first time and then he started playing with Sal. Now they romp all over the place and he can occasionally be caught smiling!
It’ll be awhile before Beau is ready for leash walking outside the yard or trips to unpredictable places, but one new thing at a time, he is settling into a different world. He has made it through two vet visits with some struggle and he still gets very freaked out at night. There isn’t a lot of uninterrupted sleep happening in this house, but I am confident that eventually we’ll get to a place where we all feel rested again.
Well, someone is getting good sleep… and I bet you can guess which of these two it is.
Beau and Sal resting after some hard playing. It is a triumph for Beau to be playing with her! We’ve even caught him licking her face like her mama would.
If you guessed Sal, you’re right. The puppy goes from 400% to completely asleep in seconds. I thought she would be the one that would cause me to lose sleep, but actually, Beau’s anxiety at night is the tough part. Sal will let us know when she needs to potty very reliably and though that means waking up every 3-4 hours, she is quick about it.
Sal sleeping on the deck after a vigorous play session
And this is what work looks like when Sal is awake. Here she is trying to help with the video editing on one of the Summer of Tapestry videos. She is chewing on my headphone cord. I had to go get my cordless ear buds because she wasn’t going to stop exploring THAT amazing white snakey thing.
Sal is helping me edit a video. ??
Beau and Sal sleeping through the morning in their puppy pen
We wanted to adopt Beau to get him out of his difficult life in a kennel full of dogs. He was breeding stock but can’t be bred any more due to a recessive blindness gene. Fortunately for him, that recessive gene was his ticket out of there. I’m not sure what possessed us to get a puppy at the same time, but it has turned out thus far to be a blessing. She is a great comfort to Beau and he is learning to come out of his shell, play, and tolerate being pestered in a sweet baby way instead of a competitive way by adult dogs.
Maybe we all just need some puppy kisses sometimes. Three cheers to Beau and his sidekick, little Sal.* May we all have many years of adventures, banishing one fear at a time.
*Sal felt like a great dog name to us. It is short for Salsicha, the Portuguese word for sausage. Because she is a “sausage” dog after all! Mostly we’ll just call her Sal. Beaumont came with his name and we didn’t feel like it was right to change it since he’s had it a long time. Also, it is rather dignified and we’re hoping he’ll learn to find some of that dignity and courage with time.