Man and Woman's Best Friends

All of our cats and dogs are rescue animals, adopted either from shelters or as strays. All are altered.

Muffin is (we think) a Mastiff/Great Dane mix. We found her in our front yard in February 2010. She was about five months old. In February 2011 we found her sister, Twinkie, in our front yard. At almost a year and a half, Twinkie was unfixed and had already had at least one litter of puppies. I don't have a  photo of her since all of these photos were taken after the two foot snow we got shortly before Twinkie was left in our yard. I'll get newer photos soon and post them.  

 

Run, Butchie, run!

Butch is a mutt that we adopted about fourteen years ago. Despite recent traumas associated with his absolute conviction that he can take on any big dog he sees, he is still going strong. He is hard of hearing, and he has cataracts, but he still runs with the big dogs, only a little more arthritically.



A back view of Muffin, but a great view of the deep snow -- so very different from this year when we've had none.



My husband with all three of the dogs (remember that this was still before we got Twinkie). Belle, our rescue shelter dog, is in the middle.

Belle, known to our neighbors as Belly, is some kind of spaniel cross. She and my husband are devoted to each other. She is super sweet.

Fortunately, all of our dogs love cats (with the possible exception of Butch, who pretends not to see them). Not only do I need to update my photos of the dogs, but I need to get pictures of Twinkie and Ladybug (our only outdoor cat). Coming soon...

Here is a good photo of Belle taken February 19, 2012. She is an excellent sitter as long as there are treats in the offing!

Here is a prison photo of Butch. He's our oldest at 14 years old. Because of an incident when Muffin was young, Butch has to be kept in a separate yard to keep him from being accidentally injured by the larger dogs. Butch was raised with a Doberman and has a BIG DOG complex. He knows he's a Doberman at heart. He never lost a fight with PeeWee the Dobie behind him. Unfortunately, we lost PeeWee to Wobblers three years ago, and since then Butch has had to be stitched back together a couple of times. The first time was when Belle broke him out of prison and took him up to the neighbors house to meet their pack of dogs. The second time was when Muffin was a rather too enthusiastic and possessive puppy. She didn't realize that she could hurt him. Now she takes great care around him. 

Here's a photo of Twinkie. She came to us last February. We are convinced that she's Muffin's sister. She's the same age, and they knew each other even though Muffin had come to us the February before. Both were dropped off in our yard exactly a year apart. Twinkie had had puppies. Just look at that face. That's another waiting-for-a-treat expression. Despite the size of that mouth, she takes treats very delicately. She is 25 pounds lighter than her sister and has a different coat. We believe that they share a Mastiff mother but have different fathers. Twinkie has more of the mastiff face than Muffin does. 

Muffin is our best sitter. She sits without being told, just because she knows it's what I want. She and I are very close. This is good because she's one hundred pounds of love, and she can drag me anywhere. She doesn't taste treats since she swallows everything whole, so I really NEED her to want to behave. Muffin has a longer nose than Twinkie and more of a Great Dane look.

A side view since Muffin was busy watching Belle try to dig something out of a stump. Thankfully, it wasn't a skunk! I'm not a good enough photographer with my phone to be able to show just how large Muffin really is.

What a beautiful dog Muffin is. She is the best behaved off all of our pets - when she wants to be, that is! Like all Mastiffs, she is supremely stubborn. It's a good thing I'm even more stubborn.