The Story of How we Acquired Luna

Meet Luna!  She's a miniature (only 8 lbs) wire-haired dachshound who is probably about 2 years old.  She's got a lot of pep in her step.  She's house-trained and crate-crate trained.  She sweet as can be with  kids and LOVES (a little too much) other animals.  She was found nameless, collarless, and micro-chipless in a neighborhood by a big dog lover friend of ours through the kids' charter school.  All neighborhood apps and Facebook pages have turned up no owner.

I rarely check Facebook, but I happen to be looking on the school page for something specific and saw this post about this sweet dog.  I showed the post to Brian, expecting to be shot down, and told him just to think about it because we obviously can't have a bird or any other prey for Trinity and if we wait until we have land and are settled, the girls will already be out of the house.  He gave me half a dozen reasons why we shouldn't get a dog, and I said, "Just think about it."  

The next day, I get a text while homeschooling that showed me another puppy for sale that had been neutered, house-trained, etc in the neighborhood.  I was shocked because I thought he'd never give in, and here he was bringing it up to me.  I immediately asked him if we could just go meet these dogs, and he agreed as long as we didn't tell the kids about it yet.  

Turned out the puppy was $300 to adopt and Brian nixed that one, so we only went to see this stray dog.  Brian picked her up and immediately fell in love with her...more so than I did.  He was all about doing it, and I was the one saying, oh no, what if this is a huge mistake and too much for me to take on.  

The kids met her for the first time before we brought her home.

She's a huge fan of riding in the car, so she usually goes with us for drop off and pick up.

Overall, she's a very good dog.  We definitely have some things to work on, but she is already sitting very well, and I taught her to ring a bell on the back door when she needs to go out in less than a day.  I am somewhat regretting this because she is a very curious and busy little lady, often asking to go in and out and in and out way more than is necessary.  Her biggest issue is barking at people or animals, and she has made marked improvement with that already in just two weeks.

This is from after Drew's camp out, he came home, showered and crashed with her on the couch.

Trinity came down once the first day when we got her and hissed at Luna who just wanted to be friends and has refused to come downstairs ever since.  We tried forcing the issue, leaving her litter and food in the pantry where they already were, but after one peed on bean bag, I quickly moved the litter box up to our bathroom.  I tried still to leave the food, but when she hadn't still ventured down to eat in three days, I caved and moved it all upstairs.  We currently have a gate at the bottom of the stairs.  Luna gets the run of the downstairs except when we are gone or at night when she goes in her crate.  Trinity can come down whenever she feels like it, but two weeks and she still hasn't.

Naming her was fun.  I wanted a literary name that had a religious tie in.  Hyacinth was from a book and also a saint name.  Trinity wasn't from a book, but has the religious theme while still making light of her three leg situation.  Mr. Bubbles was named after a character in a book. So we had the following list...

1. Merrylegs, nickname Merry (from Black Beauty and has tie in to Mother Mary)
2. Ladybug, nickname Lady (from Lady and the Tramp and has tie in to Our Lady, plus ladybug is our family's favorite word in German, Mariankefer, translating directly as "Mary Beetle")
3. Hildegard, nickname Hildie (no literary character, just a German saint name for a German dog for a family that has lived in Germany) *Brian really pushed for this one, but not many others really liked it.
4. Luna (from HP and has tie in to Mary because she is often referred to as being like the moon and reflecting the son's glory, plus it's a Spanish word and we got her in San Antonio)

We did many votes, even trying out some different weights to the adults votes and still it always came out against Hildie.  So Brian relented and her name is Luna, with nicknames Lulu, Lou, Luna Love, Loonie Bird, Loon.  She's learning it.

Dog beds are expensive, so I made her a quick one for the time being out of spare fabric and old socks.  It was such a quick project.  I am going to have to make her a nicer one with her name on it when I find the time.