I have two dogs, and I realized the other day that I have not posted about them for some reason. That is very strange because I really love dogs – I just have a lot of other stuff to write about, I guess.
I got Downey in 2010 when we lived in Los Angeles; we got him jointly with my sister. I had a very old dog named Drake at the time, and he wasn’t able to go on real walks anymore, because he had really bad arthritis. My sister thought it would be nice if we had a dog we could take with us on our daily walks around the neighborhood. One day a coworker posted some pics of a Shar-Pei mix that his friend was getting rid of – they had 5 kids and no time for the dog, and their landlord wouldn’t let them bring him inside. He was 11 months old. I sent the picture to my sister thinking she would say no, but she surprised me and said we should check him out. We took him in and I’ve had him ever since. Drake was not a fan of Downey. He was 13 years old and couldn’t see or hear very well, and Downey was a very playful pup. My Drake died a couple months after Downey came to us. Eventually my sister and I moved to different places and Downey came with me and my family; and then he came with us to Michigan.
We kept the name he came with – Downey. He’s a great dog – he loves other dogs; He can be a little aggressive with people he hasn’t met – we’ve worked with him and he has gotten better over time with that; It’s mostly a fear response, we’ve found. He was always very playful, and a bit lonely. I wanted to get him a friend for a long time. When we moved into our current house, we decided to get a second dog.
I was looking for a puppy, but not a small breed dog. And I didn’t want to pay a breeder for one. I’d rather adopt. I saw a really cute fuzzy face on Petfinder – an Akita mix; he was in Northern Minnesota at a shelter. We called them and decided to go get him. He was 4 months old, but 40 pounds already. We brought Downey with us to meet him; they got along well that day, so we took him home. His name at the shelter was Landon. He was a little smaller than Downey at that time – about an inch shorter and only 10 pounds lighter.
A week after getting him, my son thought he looked like an At-At from Star Wars. So we changed his name to Atat. (Pronounced At-Tat). He is now almost 1 and a half years old. He is very large – he weighed 98 pounds at his last checkup about a month ago. He’s a great dog; very friendly with people – sometimes a little overzealous. We are working to get him to stop jumping up on people since he is head height with me when he jumps up. We think he is part Shepherd as well; he looks like a giant German Shepherd with a curly tail. He’s probably twice Downey’s height. He went through a very destructive phase, as most puppies do – he tore up the back of our couch, that we had gotten about a month before him. His destructiveness has gone down a lot now. He is still very playful – he and Downey are great friends; Downey gets a little upset with him sometimes because Atat always gets his way when they play. Atat is just so large, Downey can’t compete sometimes.
Here are some photos of my awesome dogs:
My tiny u.p. farm 