About

This is a journal of the lives of our Great Pyrenees dogs (and Oscar the Cat is in here some, too). My husband and I originally began this pet journal on a Word document several years ago when we got our second pyr Ellie. We wanted to keep track of all the things that we would learn as we raised her, because we had pretty much forgotten everything from our first dog Samson. After nearly 2 years of keeping up with this journal on my computer, I finally decided that it would be easier to update if I moved it online; and with a blog, I can add tags so that the information is more easily referenced and organized. I also thought that moving the journal online would be more beneficial to other people who sought information about this breed of dog.

Us Hoomans

My name is Lauren, and I'm pretty much the keeper of this blog. I work as webmaster for a local school district, and I couldn't be happier.
I get to do design work that I love, and I get all the great benefits of working in K-12 education (read "lots of time off"). My husband's name is Travis, and he works in higher education. He is currently an academic adviser and sometimes instructor. He just got his Ph.D. not too long ago, so I'm really proud of my super smart hubby. :)

The Pooches

Samson is our oldest pyr. We got him in 2006 as a puppy from a farm. He was really dirty and absolutely covered in flees at the time. We think he probably has some Labrador in him because his mother had short hair as did half of her puppies; his father was full pyr and even had papers, but who cares? lol Sam has grown into a wonderul, calm and caring "alpha dog". He's so stoic sometimes, but he lets you know in his own subtle way when he wants cuddles.

Abby is our youngest pyr. We adopted her in 2010 not long after Ellie died. She's truly been a godsend with her cheerful and loving personality. It's also been very rewarding knowing that we saved her from an uncertain future in a shelter. She was also a breeze to house train even though we were told that she had previously been an outside dog. She took to the house like a duck to water.
 

Ellie was our second pyr. We bought her in 2009 and she was the biggest puppy we had ever seen! She was very affectionate, but was also very fearful of being outside; we never did really figure that out or cure her of it. When Ellie wasn't in the back yard, she was very friendly and loved children, new people, and other dogs. We could even take her walking around town and she would be fine; there was just something about our back yard that made her uncomfortable. Regardless of her fearfulness, she was happy and well cared for and she'll always be remembered. Ellie died at the end of summer in 2010 due to unknown causes; she was a year and a half old.

And Oscar, Too

We've had Oscar almost as long as we've had Samson. Little kitty Oscar showed up scared and alone one day while Travis was washing his car. He mewed from underneath some bushes as though calling for help; naturally when we went to find him he ran away. It didn't take us long to catch him, though, and I promptly took him inside and gave him a warm-washcloth bath (he got a little muddy while trying to evade us), and by the time I was done he had decided that we were okay. I tried to find a home for him on facebook, but there were no takers – how could anybody resist this face?! So we ended up keeping the little guy. Since then he's become the dogs' favorite chew toy. :)