Tag: family

My Mother has this thing, this memory of always having a dog in the house. Walking on the Oregon coast with a dog, collecting rocks, shells, glass… She loves having a dog. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a huge cat person, but there’s always a want, no a need for a dog. Anyway, she finally found the right one! While researching the “perfect dog” for a family with kids and cats, she kept coming across Great Pyrenees dogs, so she set off searching for one. She found a guy in Ohio who had some puppies, which I immediately recoiled at the thought. I have two kids, I don’t want a third! As luck would have it (for us and the dog) this guy was done breeding his Great Pyrenees and was keeping two of the puppies but didn’t want the mother anymore. How sad right?? The only logical thing was we’d take the mother! Aside from the fact that she’s 4, already house-trained, and just beautiful, we’d be putting an end to any more breeding. Stopping the ‘puppy-factory’ if you will. We jumped in the car and drove 3 hours into the emptiness of SE Ohio and got our girl! We got her on Saint Patrick’s day, so instead of a proper French name, she ended up with an Irish name: Fionnoula Maeve O’Quinn (mom’s family name.) It was leaps and bounds better than her previous name, which I won’t bother to even type.

Fionnoula is the sweetest dog I’ve ever met and though I was reluctant to have a dog in the house, the cats don’t even seem to mind her. But what’s more amazing, is that she doesn’t mind the cats, or the chickens. She’s barely interested in either. She’d rather follow my daughter up and down two flights of steps, outside, wherever she goes Fionnoula is close by.