Sweet gentle Brees, and Shocking Shockey!

(I've been needing to blog about this but it still makes me sad but this is our family journal; good and bad, they are our experiences in life.)

As I stated in my last post, we got a puppy. We had headed out of Louisiana and we were just exhausted. (If you read my last post, you know we spent 12 solid hours trying to clean our rent house then got up very early the next morning to drive to Louisiana.) Anyways, Brent is always the driver on our trips but he said he was drowsy so I being the sweet wife that I am, offered to drive us home. So, he happily agreed. Anyways, we got in to Shreveport and needed gas so I pulled over to fill up. Of course anyone who travels knows that as soon as you stop, everyone wakes up. Well, we got gas and as I was driving off when the whole family noticed a sign that said "Puppies for Sale- Shit-zu's". I told Brent we needed to go on but he and the kids insisted we stop. So knowing we didn't want to spend $350.00 on Christmas Eve, I humored them all and turned around and stopped. UGH! Oh, how I wish I hadn't stopped. Well, before we knew it we were driving down the road with a sweet, toy shih-tzu we named "Brees". He was so dang cute and sweet.

He just loved to sit on your lap and sleep. He let the kids just tote him around and seemed to enjoy every minute of it. He would untie my shoes. He was just the perfect dog. We just all absolutely fell in love with him.

I tried playing the devil's advocate and tried not to get close to him, but somehow I did. I don't even really like animals. One afternoon, six days later on December 30th, our new renter called and wasn't feeling well and wanted me to come pick up the rent for January. (Since she had the rent, I was happy to go get it.) So I left the kids cleaning the house and ran to get the money. Brent was gone helping a friend move some furniture. So I got in the car went and got the money, took it to the bank and passed the car wash on the way home. I thought, ugh, this car is so filthy, I'm going to get it cleaned. By the time I made it home, I'd been gone about an hour. I came in and Kourtney and Kaelyn said they were hungry so I immediately started making them some lunch. Then we ate. I always go upstairs to check on the kids and see how they had progressed but I didn't this time since I got distracted making lunch. After lunch, I got on the computer for a few minutes when Kolton came downstairs screaming that Brees was dead. I said what?!! He was carrying a lifeless little 1.8 lb puppy in his arms. I freaked out. I don't deal well with blood let alone death. Apparently while I was gone, Kylee had decided to bathe him and then just laid him down on the bathroom rug. Kolton found him sometime later. I immediately called Brent. Anyone who knows Brent, knows he is a "Jack of all trades". I knew he could fix Brees, too. I can't ever recall a time that Brent hasn't fixed what I needed fixing, literally! ANyways, I was screaming on the phone and Brent thought I told him that I couldn't get Kolton to wake up. So Brent fell to his knees. He asked me what happened and I said "Kylee drowned" but he never understood the rest of my sentence which ended with "the dog." So now he was obviously in a massive panic. Poor guy. I handed the phone to Kolton who calmly explained to his dad that his baby sister had drowned their new puppy. He was relieved to say the least... the rest of us where still in panic mode. I will never forget my sweet Kourtney trying to give him CPR. It still makes me cry to this day. Brent told Kolton to take a towel and wait outside for him in the back yard. All five of us just cried and cried. This poor sweet puppy died because of my neglect. It just didn't seem fair. Can't he have 9 lives? I promise I'll take Kylee with me, I promise just bring him back to life... we will all be more careful. Well, it wasn't meant to be. Brent got home shortly and took the dog and buried him in the back yard. Most of us stayed inside. Kolton and Kourtney wrote Brees these letters. (We found them next to his grave about a week later, so I took them before the weather did.)

Brent took us and hugged us all and cried with us. We knelt and had prayer thanking the Lord for the short time we had been blessed withBrees. Brent got the scriptures and read to us from Alma about resurrection. That brought us peace but we still grieved. The next few days, the kids would break down and just cry and cry and I would join them. Soon I began to think I was crazy. How could I mourn the loss of a puppy we only had for 6 days! I seriously was going to need some puppy grief counseling. I believe in God's Plan whole heartedly but why would he need our puppy? I can often justify death by saying the Lord needed him, but did he really need our puppy??? I came to understand, he didn't need our puppy, but we needed to learn the value of life. It was a painful lesson, but I understood and in the end, obviously we were glad it was our puppy and not a family member.

So, the crying continued and the only thing that seemed to help was to think about getting another puppy but maybe one not so fragile and tiny. (Brees was a toy shih-tzu so he would only get to be about 6 lbs. full grown). Anyways, we looked on Craig's List and found a small rat-terrier/chihuaha mix. Great a mutt, a cheap one, too. That's what we need. So two weeks after Brees died, we got another puppy.

But this one I'm pretty sure is a crack baby! He is so hyper and wild. So different from Brees. But at the same time better for our family because we all know Kylee can barely hold him for two seconds before he is gone. So now it's been almost 2 months and Shockey has made it. We really wanted to show Brees that we could be good, responsible owners so we are happy and are trying to remember how quickly life can change so value every minute!