The best housemates ever!

I live with two housemates. And I can't believe that I didn't mention them on my "about me" page! They are an extremely important part of my life!

One is named Jude. He's the three and one half year old Aussie shepherd pictured above. The other is a 100 pound golden retriever named Bisquet (that's my fancy way of spelling Biscuit!) She's golden, not red, and she's just over seven years old.

Bisquet is my third golden, but Jude is my first Aussie. Bisquet is really, really sweet, and she's the neighborhood's favorite dog.

Jude is so sweet and smart that I have him in basic dog obedience as the first step to training him to be a therapy dog! Hopefully, next year at this time, he and I should be heading out to visit hospitals and nursing homes.

They are both house dogs. And generally whatever room I am in, that's where they will be, especially the little Aussie! At night, Bisquet sleeps on the floor beside my bed, and usually, Jude is at the foot of my bed. Bisquet snores something awful, but in contrast to my former husband, her snoring somehow soothes me to sleep.

The first dog that I had as an adult was a little toy silver poodle named Sarah. She was another really smart dog. We went to dog obedience together, and she won the yellow ribbon, third place in her rather large class!

After Sarah, we got our first (and favorite) golden retriever, Spice. At first, there were two golden puppies, Sugar and Spice, named by my daughter Ellen. Sugar was blond, and Spice was red. Then Sugar disappeared, and there was only Spice. We went to obedience school, too, and boy, was he smart and well-behaved! How I loved that dog! We hiked so many miles together. As he aged, he got congestive heart failure, and it broke my heart to have to put him down.

Then there was the little miniature tri-colored dashound that we named Dapple. He was Ellen's dog, which she got when she was about eight or nine. But because I regularly fed, watered, and walked the dogs and eventually Ellen went off to college at age 17, he became my dog.

Then I got a little cairn terrier that I named Finn, after Huck Finn.  He proved to be quite a hand full with a mind of his own and a bite to match.  After several years, I gave him away. Later, I got another golden retriever named Bella, but she attacked Dapple, so I had to give her away, too.

Now I'm quite happy with Jude and Bisquet. They get along so well together and couldn't be better housemates.They gently wake me up every morning and are so happy to greet me when I come home. No matter if I've been gone for a few minutes or a few days, they get so excited that I am home.  And boy, are those dogs helpful when the eight month old granddaughter eats and gets more on the floor than in her mouth!

I always say that when I die, as I walk down that autumn path, the first "people" that will come to greet me will be Spice with Sarah and Dapple following close behind. What a greeting that will be! Then I will know that I have indeed crossed over and arrived in heaven!