For those of you who don't know the story of Honey...
When Matt and I lived in Sarasota - even before we were married - we decided we wanted a dog. Matt found a family in Atlanta that raised Lhasa Apsos. My family had had a shih-tzu named Forrest when I was growing up, so naturally I wanted a small, fluffy dog, too. It took some persuading on my part to get Matt to agree to a lap dog (he'd only had big dogs growing up), but at the time we lived in a one-bedroom, 850-square-foot apartment. So, a small dog was all we could accommodate. The picture on the website showed three puppies - two of them looking straight on at the camera and the other sort of laid over on its side, looking all silly and sleepy. Matt pointed to the silly one and said, "I want that one." We called the people, and it turned out they only had one dog left - the silly, lazy one. It was a female. We said we'd take her. So, on Valentine's Day (which happened to be a Friday) we left after work and drove straight to Atlanta - about 8 hours away. We got in around 1:00 in the morning, spent the night in a hotel room and got up early the next morning to go get her. The family was very nice. They welcomed us into their home, and we sat on their couch and chatted about the puppy. She was nothing more than a tiny fur ball. Cute as a button. The family had a young son, and he had nicknamed her "Stitch", from the kids movie, Lilo & Stitch. She was a light golden-tan color, and we had already decided to call her Honey. When we started the 8-hour drive back to Sarasota, she started to cry. We didn't know what the heck to do, and I thought I was going to cry, too. After about 30 minutes she settled down, and we made it back to Florida without any more tears.
We lived on the third floor of a three-story apartment complex with no elevators. So, as you can imagine, housebreaking Miss Honey was a bit of a challenge. We couldn't just open the door and let her out into the grass. No. We had to run down three flights of stairs first, which resulted in lots of peeing on the stairs (and on us) because she couldn't hold it all the way down.
Speaking of peeing... We used to take her to a dog park in Sarasota, where she'd get chased and pounced on by this aggressive little Jack Russell Terrier named Bullet. As if that weren't bad enough, one afternoon there was a "parade of yorkies." Here they all came prancing into the yard, dressed and wearing hats and sunglasses. This one little tiny one walked right up to Honey, lifted its leg and peed on her! That was the last time we visited the dog park.
If you've known Honey from the beginning, you've witnessed the bizarre change in her hair color. She went from a "honey" color to a dark charcoal color. And just as her hair color has evolved, so have her nicknames - Honey Bee, The Bee, Queen Bee, Bumble Bee, Bumble Bee Button, Bee Bear... and here are some of the really weird ones... Nimsies, Nimsicals, Saucy, Sauster, Sissy.
Now, that last one - Sissy - is probably the most recent. It came about when we adopted her little brother, Oscar, about a year and a half ago. Oh boy, did that rock her world. While they still scuffle a bit (don't all siblings bicker?), Honey has accepted him as a permanent fixture in her life, and they even share a doggie bed sometimes when they sleep!
Hard to believe she's 7 years old today! Here's hoping for many more birthdays for the little "B".
