max and mac.

so. i've been quiet here lately. it's not that i haven't been sewing, because i have. it's not because i haven't been mentally blogging left and right, because i have.

it's more that i haven't hit that legendary ideal triangle where time, desire, idea, and project have all intersected. ummm. i guess that's a square, actually.

so, while i'm here, and i've got the ole keyboard dusted off, let's talk about a few things happening in das googiehaus.

this is kind of a biggie. our almost-11-year-old dog max had to be put down a few weeks ago. it was a combination of reasons that led to the surprisingly painful decision.

from l to r: oblivious cheesing for photo, you’re killing my dog, YOU’RE KILLING MY DOG, sad but i’ll smile, thinks max is just sleeping somewhere else not “going to sleep”. jeremy was all “WHY ARE YOU MAKING THEM POSE FOR A PHOTO???” but, well, because?

i say "surprising" because it really caught me off guard. max was an awesome dog in many ways--incredible with the kids, very protective of the home, the kind of dog we could leave home while we went to the beach all day and she'd be waiting happily when we got home--no 'accidents', nothing chewed or destroyed.

when i tell you she was good with kids—i trained that dog to not touch ANYONE’S food. i have a huge pet peeve with dogs that grab food from a small child’s hands. like, HUGE pet peeve. like, it makes me skull crushing furious.
one day someone left a half finished waffle on the floor in the kitchen. i walked in just as max picked it up and headed out to snack. she stopped, baaaccccked slowly up, gently set the waffle back down on the floor, and slunk away. nothing to see here, i was most definitely NOT taking this waffle.

but...max had issues, too. she was very animal aggressive--if it was furry, she wanted to kill it. cat, dog, squirrel, mailman. you get the drift. and over the years there's been a few incidents, a few vet bills paid by us...pretty stressful.
a month ago guinevere opened the front door to take out the garbage just as the mailman came. no warning, no growl, no bark—max pushed past her and chased the mailman off the porch and bit his hand. badly.
fortunately for us he was completely awesome about it. what could have been absolutely terrible was only mildly terrible. what could have cost us thousands only cost us a 6-pack and some chocolate pretzels (is there a standard “sorry my dog tried to eat you” gift?)

max was getting old, and needed another surgery, and was losing her hearing and sight—but not her formidable strength. so a week later when i got up in the middle of the night and she barked at me because she didn’t recognize me…well, that was literally another nail in her coffin.

whether purposefully or not, she was becoming a danger to our family.

i thought i was sick of it. i thought i was counting down the days for max, so i could say goodbye to a pretty big stressor in our lives. i know—it sounds heartless and terrible, but when you have a dog that’s kind of a ticking timebomb and you live on a street with a great big field that half the neighborhood brings their dogs to so there’s constantly random dogs running up to your fence, etc….well, yeah.
my dog isn’t my “baby”, i’m not it’s “mommy”. i have 5 human children who call me mommy, this is a pet, and it’s lifespan is shorter than yours, so it dies and you get a new one. right? right.
i’m so tough. and logical. and tough.

except, i’m not. when it came time...well, let's just say i didn't handle it so well.

not. at. all.

we made an appointment, and cancelled it. we debated for 3 more weeks, and then picked a day. we took max to the SPCA, and i thought i was holding it together. then they started asking me things like how long have you had max? how old is max? please sign this paper that says we’re killing your dog thankyouverymuch.
and i was like WHO CARES WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME SAY THESE THINGS ARRRRGGGHHH.

then we brought her in, and the lady took her and asked if we wanted the leash and collar back, and…. that was it.

jeremy and i went outside to the bench, where i cried like a baby and he tried not to throw up.

we were basically a family of hawt crying messes, and i'll own up to being the worst. i spent 2 solid days saying things like "look at the sun shining on the hill. max would have loved to lay up there on her hillllll..bfflghtlshhhh....whahhhhhh".

you get the drift.

so instead of waiting a month or so before adding to our family like we initially planned, we made the executive decision to add promptly.

find the puppy.

we found macallister (mac) through a rescue, he came from a kill shelter down south.

we knew we wanted to do a rescue dog this time, and because supposedly *I* “picked” sonny, jeremy said this was his pick. //eyeroll// hehehe

we filled out a few applications online. i’ll be honest—some of these are kind of nuts. i perfectly understand the desire of these people to make sure the dogs are going to good, safe, loving homes. but one of them actually asked “Do you have a plan in place to ensure proper care of your pet in case you are injured or are in some way unable to properly care for your pet?”

and i was all…umm, i don’t even have a will for my CHILDREN.

how about this: we WILL neuter. we will NOT enter him in a dog fighting ring. we WILL get his shots. we WILL feed him and love him, and snuggle him and pet him until he can’t stand it anymore. we will NOT dock his ears or clip his tail. mmmkay?
when we finally stumbled across mac, and talked to cris it all fell into place. she loves her dogs, she wants them to go to good homes, but she’s not insane about it. she talked to our vet, she got a couple references, we went to visit them and introduce the kids and sonny to him, she came and checked out our house when she dropped him off. and we had a new puppy. 

do you know how hard it is to take a good photo of a camouflaged dog?

he's a plott hound mix, which we'd never heard of until we started looking at rescues. that’s what gives him his beautiful brindle coloring. it's been a week since he came home to us, and he's a solid 27 pounds of squishy love with giant paws and soft fur and that puppy head cock that’s all “Huh? I’m listening!”

we debated names for a while…macallister was our middle name if elliot had been a boy, and we both super love the name. but…mac? too close to max? orrrrrr a nice tribute to max, and a way of not cringing every time we accidentally call him max over the next few weeks? yup, dumb like a fox ;)
you’re all “MAAAAAXXxxshCK”. no harm, no foul.

he and sonny have bonded and it's nonstop playing-sleeping-eating in a cycle all day, erry day around here.

now if he could just teach sonny to stop pooping in the house (stupid chihuahua), he'd be perfect.

that and maybe mac could stop peeing on my unfinished quilt. >:( grrrrrrr.

you know...my quilt that i've been working on for months and am not done quilting yet and thus can not WASH until i FINISH, so i'm now quilting this stinky wet KING SIZE quilt that he searches out and pees on at least once a day!??!?!?! i'm not really sure why he either hates or loves this thing so much. clearly it's one or the other, i'm just not sure which…