caturday with...dogs

This wasn't the post I had intended to put up, but I realized that while I posted pictures of Luke's cat a few weeks ago, I haven't posted anything about my dogs.  So I'm re-inventing Caturday this week with pictures of my two canine buddies.

I currently have two dogs, and they're both whippets -- not greyhounds.  It's a bit hard to tell the difference in pictures, but they're much smaller than greyhounds.  The one with the white face is Shawn (and no, we didn't name him).  He was a show dog, and was given to us for free because he wasn't doing well in the dog shows, and he was always being bullied in the kennel by the other dogs.  He actually is the half brother of our other dog, Niles, who passed away in 2009 from a series of strokes.  But if you can't tell from that last picture, he has the biggest doe eyes, and he mostly sleeps (like a cat!), and dotes on my mom, whom he lives for.  He's about thirteen now, and has prostate cancer, but it doesn't seem to stop him.

Pip is the youngster that we got mostly to help Shawn deal with the grief of losing Niles.  When Niles died, Shawn was miserable.  He had never been without another dog before, and didn't know how to be alone if we had to go out.  So we got Pip, and at first it didn't work out the way we had hoped -- Shawn was pretty much repulsed by Pip.  But as Pip got older, they got a bit more fond of each other, but they're nothing like Shawn and Niles used to be.  I think that's okay though.  Pip is definitely his own dog; he's a total brat, although we're working him hard at obedience training.  Those spots on his nose?  They used to look like little freckles.  The only toy he can have is a plastic squeaky ball because he literally destroys everything else.  He cuddles with you only when he wants to, and likes to sleep underneath forts of couch cushions and blankets -- he'll actually ask for you to make a fort for him.  These pictures are a bit deceiving, because he is rarely this docile.

Well, there you have it!  Two of my very best friends in the world.  I'll definitely be posting more pictures of them in the future, and I'll try and scrounge up some pictures of Niles too (you see, he was a puppy in the days when we didn't even have a digital camera yet), likely in October because that was his birthday.  I also have a few more fun posts lined up for this week!

(P.S. I apologize for the lack of Wallpaper Wednesday this week, but you see I was in Toronto all day, and couldn't put one up.  I'll try and put a few extra wallpapers in next week's post.)