Anna M. Aquino

                As I’ve written about before, we have become a single car family; which for us it means that when I pick my kids up from school we have to hang out where my husband works for an hour.   It’s really not that big of a deal.   His work has a small pond and a couple picnic tables set up.   The girls do their homework, and Mojo (my dog) gets to spend some time outside.   Yesterday my youngest was on a toot.   She was procrastinating on doing her homework. “Mommy, I forgot my sweater in the car.   Mommy, I don’t have a pencil.   Mommy, I need to get another piece of paper.”   I was getting frustrated, and sent her back to the car to get what she needed.   In order for her to do that, she has to cross a parking lot. I tell her every time to be careful in the parking lot. I had Mojo’s leash in one hand, and my tablet in another.   Suddenly I heard a scream. ...

Last week while we were in the North, we took our dog Mojo with us.   However when we headed for Canada, for a whole list of reasons, we left our little mini doxie with my parents in Ohio.   My parents love dogs and leaving him with them is a no brainer.   Mojo has fun with them, and I think they enjoy him too. My parents usually have bigger dogs and haven’t had a puppy or a small dog in their house in years (unless you count the week Mojo stayed there in the summer).   My mom totally forgot that she had rat poisoning behind the bed.   It had been sitting there for years.   In her defense what animal other than a rat would seriously fit or go back there.   I would have forgotten about it too (Mojo only weights 12 lbs). Mojo found the rat poisoning.   It was an innocent dog thing that could have easily killed him.    I am so grateful that my mom heard him chewing on it.   I am so grateful that she thought of getting him t...

Mojo our dog and I have struck up a bit of a battle.   I try to buy him a toy here and there, and I think he tries to see how quickly he can destroy it.   So far I have found only one toy he has yet to completely annihilate in under a day.   Yesterday I bought the toy he’s destroying here.   My oldest and I were at Wal-Mart.   The bin of Dog toys advertised a particular brand and how durable and indestructible their brand of dog toys was.   We looked deciding what he possibly couldn’t destroy and settled on one.   Mojo was excited when I brought it home.   He knew he had a new toy.   I think he had it torn to pieces in less than two hours.   I’ve already worded a nicely worded email to the company that if my 13 pound mini dauschaund can destroy their toy in less than two hours than perhaps it’s not as durable as they advertised.   Really Mojo is a good dog; for the most part he only does this to his own toys. Isn’t it irri...

            Yesterday morning was a rough morning.   I was stressed about some things and had only slept two hours.               My kids, dog (Mojo) and I are enjoying a few weeks at my parents in Ohio, and any time you travel it can have its own situations at arrive.   My dog Mojo isn’t used to a yard as big as my parents have, and though they have a buried electric dog fence Mojo is too small to put that dog collar on him.   Usually at home we don’t really have a problem with him running off; however we’ve had to watch him here.   Yesterday morning, though I’d only had two hours of sleep he was on a toot.   It’s been an unusually wet summer up here so my parents’ yard has giant water puddles everywhere.               Mojo’s eyes twinkled as he realized I’d mistakenly let hi...

             I walk to pick up and drop off my daughters most days to and from school.   I’ve been in the process of trying to get Mojo to walk that with me more.   He’s cute.   He’s a puppy, of course all the kids come out of the school gate and scream and shriek over a puppy that is extremely social and friendly.   It’s a common occurrence for the parents to walk their dogs here.               About a week ago this lady stops me and said, quite snarky I might add, “Everybody like’s YOUR dog.”   She was leading her adult dog, and the way she said it I could tell she was so mad at me because these kids were gathering around my dog.                 “Oh well yes.”   I tried to smile at her.   I couldn’t figure out how she could be so upset and jealous over who...

            We are a house with a 10 week old puppy.   Mojo is a great addition to our family, but there are some training issues we are working on.   He loves to chew on people’s toes and pant legs.   The dog is only 4 lbs.; you would think that such a threat baby teeth or not, wouldn’t be something that causes so much drama in the house.   We’re learning to correct him, and to run quickly to our destination and get our feet up so he can’t reach them.   The mere threat of his little teeth causes us to change our behaviors in the house so that we can avoid the issue.               I thought about all of this last night.   Our little Mojo isn’t a demon, but how many times do we do the same things for other things in our life.   We know something awaits us . . . maybe a trap set by the enemy is ahead and instead of dealing with it ...

              When my youngest daughter was about 2 years old she was running a high fever and in her sleep began speaking.   She kept tossing and turning saying, “I want a dog.   I want a dog.”   Today about five years later, It has become a family joke.   We always intended on the possibility of getting one, but there were several reasons why we held out.   As I mentioned in my last blog, we had since decided that the time had come, but for some wacky reason we kept facing challenges and challenges about getting the right dog.             Yesterday my family and I drove to Gainesville to meet the breeders of mini dauschunds.   We were supposed to exchange and had numerous texts back and forth, however they didn’t show up.   After everything we’d gone through Dan and I both started to panic.   It was like this must be som...