After we lost our Bill last year to intestinal cancer, there has been a huge void in our home. We were so used to having three dogs. I didn’t want to replace Bill, but after thinking of all the sweet dogs that need homes we decided to adopt another miniature Dachshund. I was looking through The Midwest Dachshund Rescue website and found a sweet little boy named Jeepers. We filled out the application and waited patiently for a response. A few days later we got a call from the women that fosters Jeepers and said that he was “in training” at a prison so it would be awhile before we could have him home with us. She interviewed me a bit and set up a meeting with local fosters who do in-home interviews and house checks.
A couple weeks later Jane and Bob visited our home. They loved our application so much that they asked us if we would foster a dog before we get Jeepers. They had rescued quite a few dogs from a puppymill in Illinois and they needed a foster for one of them. Jonathan and I were a little ambivalent about the idea. I was afraid of getting attached to the dog and wanting to keep it. We figured since it was such a short time before we were getting Jeepers, we agreed to fostering a dog first.
Later that week the rescue dogs arrived in Wisconsin and we went to Jane and Bob’s house to pick up the one we were assigned. He was a tiny, scrawny little guy. The poor thing looked starved and very unhealthy. His teeth was the worst part though. In puppymills, they don’t feed the dogs crunchy food(more like “mush” which is a mixture of the food and water so they don’t have to feed them water separately. Less work I guess). You could tell the dog was neglected and it made me very sad. I couldn’t wait to take him home and give him lots of love(and food!). Once we arrived home with him we had him meet our dogs. We took them all outside to get acquainted. Jane had mentioned to us earlier that the fosters get to choose the name for the dog. As we were outside thinking of names, I thought of the name Dexter, after the show Dexter with Michael C. Hall(my only celebrity crush, by the way), which is one of our favorite shows. If you are familiar with the show, you’ll know that the character, Dexter, has been through some tough stuff, especially as child. I thought it was fitting.
Dexter grew very attached to Jonathan right away. We were thinking that maybe a female ran the puppymill, and we were correct. So it makes sense that he’d be attached to a male more. I was a little sad but figured since it was only a foster and that we’d be getting Jeepers soon, I’d have “my little buddy” with me in no time. Bill was my dog so we were looking for a dog that would be for me to snuggle with.
Shortly after we got Dexter he got his teeth removed(14 in all) and got neutered all in one week. That was really rough for him, to have to go through two big operations in such a short period of time. But after he healed he became such a sweetie. I was beginning to think of the day he would leave us and I couldn’t bare the thought of it. After a couple weeks with him we decided that we’d keep him. I felt guilty about it since I’d have to cancel getting Jeepers. We love dogs but we are not equipped to have four of them. I figured Jeepers would get adopted since he’ll be a trained dog, and he has since been adopted, so that makes me happy :)
The photo above is what Dexter looks like now. The other two were taken the day after we got him. He’s a lot healthier looking now. He is still very much attached to Jonathan and I’m okay with that. I realize that my relationship with Bill was one in a million and it would be foolish of me to try to replicate that with another dog. Although I will say that Dexter loves to cuddle and he doesn’t mind cuddling with me at all. He has just recently started playing with toys and wrestling with our other Dachshund, Dinah. He probably couldn’t do these things before and it’s taken him this long to realize that it’s OK to just be a dog. We are so happy to have him in our lives. Dogs are truly the best!