The Characters: Molly & Franklin

After numerous emails back and forth to my future sister in law, Amy, about our naughty Schnauzers (and sometimes the poodle but rarely the black lab), I have decided to share my dog antics with you (and quite possibly the world!).

A year ago, my life was relatively simple (in terms of dog antics). My dog Franklin was through puppy stage and was, by all means, a mature dog. He was the perfect cuddler, loved to sleep late on the weekends and never went to the bathroom in the house. He was exactly the dog I wanted. But . . . the problem was . . he was almost tooo boring. He rarely did anything wrong and had a very predictable schedule.

My boyfriend (now fiance) always talked very highly of the Schnauzer breed. He said that "the Schnauzer is THE Spencer family dog". He grew up with them and his brother had gotten a Schnauzer a year before. So in my mind, I took this as us needing to get a Schnauzer. Perfectly logical, right? So I searched and I found a breeder with a litter of puppies that would be ready to go home ON CHRISTMAS! How perfect! The puppy will be a Christmas surprise!! Who hasn't wanted to get a puppy on Christmas? Especially one that is THE family breed?!!?! So we picked up the little pup up on Christmas and drove her home from Arkansas.

On the way home, Ryan and I were going through various names for her. He wanted a strong German name. Heidi was out . . naming a dog after a super model is kinda weird and also I already had a dog named Heidi when I was little (before Heidi Klum hit the scene). He wanted to name her Liepschen, which apparently means sweetheart in German. I rejected this name because 1) he already had a dog name Liepschen when he was little (you can't have two dogs in your life that have the same name) and 2) What would her nick name be?? Leepy?? That's weird. So ultimately, we decided on Molly. She was absolutely adorable.

At first, Franklin was TERRIFIED of her. I don't blame him . . she was just a little over a pound and she had a goofy Schnauzer haircut. After a few months, she was about half his size and I think he realized that she was not going to go away, so he mind as well play with her. So they got along better. At some point between 6 and 9 months (curiously while I was in London for two months) she developed THE Schnauzer personality. I'll give him credit, Ryan told me about this and we had some proof in Sadie (Rob and Amy's Schnauzer). But I thought MY Schnauzer would be different. I raised the perfect poodle, so why would my Schnauzer be any different?? Then, to make matters worse, Franklin started to regress and misbehave! So now I have two naughty dogs that have been known to do some naughty, naughty things but I wouldn't trade them for the world (well, after the mess is cleaned up). This is blog is proof of unconditional love, even after they have chewed my favorite pair of shoes . . . on my birthday.

(P.S. Franklin was having a bad hair day . . . I decided that since Amy & Rob successfully groom their dog, I should be able to successfully groom mine . . . the results were not so good. Good thing hair grows back . . . sorry Frank! )