Our Family (and our local vet's goldmine)

One of the first things that we did upon moving down from LA was to make sure we had a good fence around the yard. We knew we wanted to get dogs, and we knew they'd probably try to get out (which they did anyway). A few months after we moved in we made an impulse decision to get a Boston Terrier one Sunday afternoon. We looked all over, and after all but giving up we found Debo at the mall closest to us, which we didn't even know had a pet store. A couple of weeks later we felt bad because we left for work in the morning and he sat in a workroom all day. So we looked for a Rottweiler at the pound, and found a puppy there. Justin went to pick her up one day in the rain, and she managed to get wet and dirty paws all over his suit. That was just a portent of things to come. Meth is part Rottweiler, and as we found out in 2008, the rest is Pug - go figure. Several months after getting Debo and Meth, Justin started looking for another dog, and came across two Dobermans at a "pet store" in Norco. The two pups were in a large plastic bin with another Dobie that had already been purchased, but not picked up. We chose the runt - the one with all of the scars and scratches on her face. Suge threw up on the way home, and she's thrown up most every car trip since then. Almost a year later we decided to adopt a Great Dane - the other three dogs were having some dominance issues, so we thought getting a great big dog would help matters. Alas, Toby was a wuss, and Debo routinely beat him up, and things got less stable than more. We made it work, though. Several years later, in 2005, Crystal made the mistake of going into the pound to get Suge's rabies paperwork updated, and while waiting checked out the dogs for adoption. She saw Cabo, and soon after we had a fifth dog. That lasted until October 2008, when Toby passed away. He was given just a couple of months to live back in 2005 because of a heart condition, but he made it far past that. For a Great Dane, especially one with all the medical conditions he had, he lived a long full life.

While the dogs mostly get along, there have been several scrapes, and between these and other freak incidents, we've basically funded any addition our vet's office would ever need to do. In addition to the vet bills, they go through a bag of dog food every week. We put it out in a big horse dish (about 18" across and 4" deep), and they just eat whenever they feel like it (especially Debo). They drive us nuts sometimes, but they love us unconditionally (Suge, maybe conditionally), and its nice to have someone who's happy to see you every day.