Rachmaninoff, Pachelbel, Tiki and Sawyer are the furbabies of our household. Rachi, Pacha and Tiki were specifically chosen by us and Sawyer is there by default.
Rachi is our 2 year old lazy as lazy can get husky.
The picture above is his chosen travel position, sprawled in the back of the Xterra. He doesn't care where we go as long as he gets to go too and as long as Sawyer stays in his tiny corner of the riding area. We chose Rachi as a 6 week old puppy. We had been discussing our next puppy when Mr. MckTchr found out that a co-worker had husky puppies. It was not an intentional breeding, but the parents were a good match. The mother was a beautiful red husky and father was black and gray. We reviewed pictures before going to look at the puppies and thought we were interested in a gray female that had piercing blue eyes. Turns out, after we removed her from chewing our shoe laces she had no interest in us. Same for the rest of the pack. Red ears, however, sat back quietly watching his brothers and sisters. Once they were done fighting over our shoe laces and sniffing around they went off to wrestle with one another. Red ears came up to see what was up. We left that day thinking that we hadn't found our puppy in that pack. As we left, red ears sat at the gate watching us go. After thinking for a day or so we called the friend and said we were interested in red ears and wanted to bring him home to visit with our other dogs. At that time we had Tiki, Pacha, and Tchaik. We wanted to make sure that the new guy would fit in. When we picked him up for the home visit he was calm and cuddly in the car. We got him home and even though he was a little nervous, he wasn't scared. He fit right in and had a great time playing with his new buddy Pachelbel. He was already bigger! We waited another week to take Rachi home for good. We stopped calling him red ears and went with our music themed naming and chose Rachmaninoff. He is a great dog who has assumed the alpha male role quite well.
Pachelbel, the long haired princess of the bunch. He is our most neurotic furbaby.
Pacha is four years old now. As Tiki began to age I felt like she needed someone her size to keep her young and he has been great for her. Pacha is a long hair chocolate dachshund and his favorite thing in the world is his purple pig.
The purple pig goes everywhere Pacha goes. We keep a supply just in case piggy is lost or damaged beyond use. Thankfully
dogsupplies.com is kind enough to pick through their stock because Pacha will ONLY play with Kong purple piggies. Periodically we contact them for an order of piggies with specific instructions to only send purple piggies because any other color will be returned. They fulfill the order to the best of their ability each time, even calling us if they are currently out of purple. Pacha is also the "Jacques" of the group. (A little Nemo reference for those in the know.) Pacha takes care of cleaning all teeth and ears. He is often seen grooming his pack. Now, if anyone tries to take his piggy there will be snarling and teeth. Even though Pacha can't handle any new human or animal in his world, freaking out at the slightest change, he is the sweetest of our pack and everyone's cuddle buddy...He is also keeper of the toys.
Tiki is our 12 year old red dapple dachshund. Where Pachabel is the princess of the bunch, Tiki is the queen. Rachi may assume the role of alpha but let's be clear about who is really in charge here. Tiki might as well be a cat. Everything is on her terms. She wishes to lay close to you because you are warm. You may rub her ears if you wish, but you had better not stop. She will continually nose you every time you try. Her ultimate goal is to get you to give her something from your plate. She hovers at our feet during food prep and will poke you with her cold pointy nose hoping it will startle you into a drop. She is the most social of our pack, loving all other people and animals. Tiki will greet you with a wagging tale and leave a happy puddle at your feet. Her favorite person, grandpa. He's the only one old enough to understand her life woes.
Lastly, we have Sawyer. Sawyer is our goofy lab mix. By the size of his feet he must be mixed with Great Dane. He is tall and lanky with a curled tail, white and blonde on his belly. There may be a little shepherd in there. We did not seek Sawyer, he found us. A year ago, almost exactly, this six month old lanky black dog was being chased by Rachi in our back yard. Rachi was loosing his mind over something in our FENCED back yard and it turns out to be Sawyer. I don't know how he got there. He wasn't big enough at that time to jump the fence. (Not the case now.) We rescued him from the Rachi chaos and made attempts to find his owner. Because he smelled of tree sap we called him Sappy for the first few days.
Sawyer is the most high strung of our pack. Pacha is neurotic and obsessive compulsive. Sawyer worries about everything and doesn't do change well. He acts as if his first six months of life were not full of love and affection. He flinches, cowers, and shakes if things are not perfect in his world. If he gets too nervous he will lose his sh*t. Literally. That is not a fun thing to come home to. Twice we have come home to having to air out the location of his kennel and scrub Sawyer fear off the wall, floor, anything nearby. He ate the antique bench I painstakingly refinished.
His presence made Rachi so upset the first few days that Rachi tore through the carpet trying to get out of the room he was in so he could finish what he started the first night. Sawyer has also eaten the corner of the stairs and will shred a rope in minutes. He has also had a few incidents of carpet eating. His joy is to torture Pacha by stealing the purple piggy. Despite digging up the back yard, destroying floor and furniture, and jumping over the fence if the neighbor happens to be outside, Sawyer is now a part of the pack. Rachi loves having someone his size to play with, even if he has zero patience for the invasion of his space when we travel. Sawyer is my lovable big black dog. I don't know that he will ever be Tchaik, but then Tchaikovsky was one of a kind when it comes to being man's best friend. Sawyer will eventually settle down and be a great dog. He is learning to trust that if we leave him, we will come back. If we take him somewhere, we will bring him back with us. When we raise our hand, we are not going to hit him. He has a lot of issues, but we have worked through them...with minimal cursing and outrage.
I will always miss my first big black dog. Tchaikovsky was the best, stolen by cancer two years ago, he was the good boy.
Tchaik 2002-2014
