Riley & Shannon

This post is dedicated to the two furry members of our family, who have been thoroughly neglected since Caleb's birth (and the inception of this blog). Riley was our first baby. We had been married for two years and had just closed on our first home, and we wanted a dog. We bought him from an Irish setter breeder in Texas, and doted on him shamelessly for the first year of his life. When he was a year old, we decided he needed a friend. So we adopted a little sister and named her Shannon, and we doted on both of them for another year. They lived in our 1000 sq ft house with us, and even slept in our (queen-sized) bed with us, on occasion. We brushed their long hair all the time, and took them to the dog park several times a month. They had a very good life.

When Riley was two-years-old and Shannon was one-year-old, Caleb was born, and the dogs' poor little worlds came crumbling apart. Initially, we let them stay in the house and just kept them out of the bedrooms. But when Caleb was about six-months-old and started crawling, the dust and hair everywhere frustrated us too much, and Riley and Shannon became outside dogs.

This summer, Riley will be six-years-old and Shannon will be five-years-old, and they've been outside for most of their lives. But last week, I broke down and bought a set of professional dog clippers so I could cut their long hair short, remove all the matted areas, and get them really, really cleaned up. It took the better part of Saturday afternoon, but they look and smell like new dogs. I was so pleased with the effect that I even let them come in the play room with the boys for a little while yesterday morning. Now that Ethan is big enough that he is not intimidated by their size, I hope the boys (and we) can enjoy more time playing with our over-sized canines :).