god loves a terrier

the lowells are schnauzer people. in 1995 we bought our first schnauzer. we named her pepper, and there wasn't enough of her cute pudgy little body to go around. mom and dad thought it would be great fun to breed her and have more schnauzer puppies. (i thought this was a horrible idea and cried and yelled at my parents for taking her to get raped. their claims that it was in her nature disgusted me, and i still believe to this day that sex and pregnancy changed my sweet innocent little pepper). but the mating took. and pepper had 6 pudgy little puppies, 5 girls, and 1 boy. the boy was the runt, so we appropriately named him wilbur (and if you've never seen charlotte's web, perhaps you should update your netflix queue). wilbur was so teeny that one fateful day, pepper smushed him. julie counted & recounted, but only counted 5 puppies, until she finally found him, under pepper. wilbur was barely breathing, but my dad got out his stethoscope and my medically inclined parents performed "mouth to snout" resuscitation. though slightly brain dead, he's the sweetest little pig. the cutest female became jennie and derek's first baby. they were living in hershey, PA, and consequently, cocoa was christened.
one christmas, derek surprised jennie with a second schnauzer puppy, duncan, and then there were four.

i wanted a dog. but i was going to break away from my famliy's trend and forge my own path. and i did. when i was in the peace corps i found myself a pudgy little black mutt, koobe (the kiribati word for coffee), who grew into a black lab look-a-like who thought he was a schnauzer lap dog. i tried my hardest to bring him home with me, but the doggods were not in our favor and that's too sad of a story to tell.when i returned i searched the pounds and the humane society for my dog. i knew that he or she would come to me and that i would just know when the dog and the time were right. i searched and searched but found no doggie soul mate. and then i gave up the search with the tiniest flame of hope still lit in the back of my heart.
derek's parents, lynn & allen had taken up the hobby and side-business of dog-breeding. their spacious farm offered much land on which their cockerspaniels, poodles, schnauzers, cockapoos, & schnoodles could run.
on another fateful day, one schnauzer was born to them with only 3 legs. the umbilical cord had wrapped around her hind right leg and cut off the circulation so much so, that her leg had fallen off (who knew dogs even had umbilical cords?)! lynn & allen couldn't sell her, so they offered her to jennie and derek, who declined because they had their hands full with cocoa, duncan, and baby baxter on the way. next she was offered to me. the time was right, the dog was right (even though i thought i didn't want a schnauzer), and then there were five. ella was meant to be mine. thank dogness she is.with five schnauzers, the "guess the schnauzie" game, in which a blind-folded family member was on the clock to guess which schnauzer she was touching, was born. it was really quite easy -- duncan had cropped ears, cocoa had a cyst on her side, pepper was the licker, wilbur has the softest fur, and well, ella only has 3 legs!
sadly, we lost our duncan to cancer. luckily (some might say), another terrier waltzed his way into our lives. oliver was julie's "rescue" dog -- who rescued whom, i'm still not sure. the poor wheaton had spent the first 11 months of his life neglected in a cage, left for hours at a time. he had abandonment issues, to say the least, and still gets nervous and pees on things when julie starts to pack. (i know i'm not really one to talk when it comes to a dog's nervous bodily habits). i think both of our doggie soul mates have come a long way though.

ella just turned four -- i think celebrating her with a blog post and a little whip cream treat is exactly what she wanted.

happy birthday baby.