You know how cool it is to find someone online that shares your particular reading style, that "gets" the books you love to read and loves them as much or more than you do... Lily from Lilium's Realm is one of those people!
Lily has her own "style" which you either love or hate as she is very strong minded in her opinions not only on books but real life... I do also so needless to say we mesh very well when chatting in emails, we both love dark paranormal reads, our family pets and believe children are "real people" not just "possessions" for Mom and Dad to trot out when they wish to impress others....
Please welcome Lily today and enjoy the story that she has to share with us!
Hello out there everyone. Today I am hanging out with you, and my name is Lily. I write the blog Lilium’s Realm. My blog is mostly about my books, but knowing how passionate Jackie is about dogs, I am talking about my four legged brats today. Well, really just one.
My husband and I used to do dog rescue. Don’t go thinking we are animal heroes, because we aren’t. I just love them. Even as a child I wanted about a million pets. At one point in my life I owned 7 chinchillas, 2 cats, a blind rabbit, a guinea pig with three legs, a skunk, three squirrels, and four dogs. Oh, and a pet chicken. We were not animal hoarders, we just had many. I loved them all. Most of them came to us because they needed help. If an animal was sick or injured in the neighborhood people brought it to me. I was a little Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman: Pet Edition. For some reason I have always had a connection with the furred and I have always had pets.
When my husband and I got together he had a German Shepherd whom he loved more than me. She was a retired police dog and held a special place in his heart. When she died I really didn’t think he was going to recover. Then I talked him into letting me help find a home for an abused Miniature Doberman Pinscher. Her name was Neeko and she looked like hell. Covered in cigarette burns and skittish to the extreme, I really didn’t know if we could help her. As the weeks passed she became part of our family and before I knew it she was a wonderful little dog. She became his dog. Then we started helping other dogs. At one point we had two Pomeranians, a basset hound and a Rottweiler. You would think the Rotti would be the evil one, but it was that little hateful girl Pomeranian. She was Satan in a dog suit. Mean as hell and smart as a whip she was a terror. Alas, I won them all over and got them all homes. Then came the day we took in a dog I was nervous about. I wasn’t sure about her and my instinct proved correct. She attacked Neeko and killed her. It was traumatic for my husband. That’s when he said “NO MORE!” ...for four years we lived with no pets. Not even a goldfish.
My husband joined the HOA board and that’s when the animal thing started back up. Getting a phone call to come to an abandoned house in our neighborhood was what pushed him over the edge. There was a very sad, very sick poodle mix locked in a closet and the owner had moved away. Talk about horror. He called me and said “Do you want to help a dog out for a little bit?” and of course I jumped at it. Then I got another and another and another. Again, the people in the neighborhood knew who to call to find a dog a good temporary home. For my 25th birthday my husband got me a dachshund named Carlisle, a forever dog.
Carlisle
I was thrilled. A month later he texted me at work:
“babe, wanna help a dog?”
“What kind?”
“a good one.”
“What kind?”
“big.”
“How big?”
“Great Dane.”
“R u outta your mind?!”
I didn’t want that dog. I called him and told him I didn’t want her. I told him I would not walk her. She would be his problem. There was no way on earth that I could walk a dog that was almost as tall as I am. NO. NO. AND NO. If you’ve ever let your children get a puppy, then you know what my husband having a dog is like.
Day one: I LOVE THIS DOG! LET ME WALK HER! LET ME FEED HER! LOOK DOG, LET’S PLAY FETCH!
Day two: What a good dog. I love her. Let me walk her, feed her and play fetch!
Day three: Let me walk the dog. Is it time to feed her again? Oh! Let’s play fetch!
……………..
Day nine: I’m tired, babe, can you please walk the dog for me?
So, because I can’t handle seeing the dog suffer, and because I pick my battles, I walked the damn dog. She is a horse. The top of her head comes up to my chest, and I am 5’2”. I was nervous about her. What if she chooses to chase a cat? There is NO WAY I could stop her. Resigned and nervous I walked her. She didn’t do the spider-man dog thing on the leash. She walked right next to me, never pulling. Then some strange guy walked up to me, and she did the most amazing thing. She put herself between us and leaned back on me. I didn’t really want to talk to this guy, but there was no way around him, he was standing near my house. Yukon (the dog) was just fine, until he took one step closer. She rolled a massive lip back and let out the darkest growl, one that made it clear he was too far. He took a big step back and looked at her. He said he wanted some directions. I told him I didn’t know where anything was, sorry. He took another step forward and suddenly she barked, and it was LOUD. So loud it drew the attention of my neighbor and before I knew it the guy was gone. LIKE GONE. And I was in love.
Yukon nursing pups
This dog I didn’t want, didn’t even like, was now my dog. I told my husband we had to keep her, there was no way I was letting her go. There was some mild outrage a few weeks ago when he was looking at a home for us that would allow us to keep the little dog but not her. I put my foot down. NO WAY. NO HOW. We now can not do any more rescues, but I do still play an overnight emergency home. I have my dogs, my hubs, my kids and a spoiled rotten cat. The dogs amuse me to no end, especially since they like to sleep in the same kennel together, and the big one uses the little one for a pillow most of the time.
Carlisle and Yukon
So that’s my story about the many animals I have housed, and how a Great Dane stole my cold heart.
Have you ever gotten a pet under duress and ended up falling in love with it?
Thanks again Lily for guest posting on my blog, as I had my second surgery for my cataract on my left eye today it was nice to leave the blog in your capable hands and kudos to you and your husband both, you are braver than I will ever be taking on all those injured babies to rehab!
I encourage everyone who has not done so to stop by Lily's blog sooner rather than later, you will have a lot of interesting posts to catch up on... And you might want to check her out on Twitter as the convos can get pretty intense!
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