Sunday July 8th, one week ago today, I decided to Google any upcoming corgi litters in the area. I found a litter born June 16th with a couple male pups available. I sent the woman an email and within the hour had multiple pictures of the male my boyfriend and I liked best. We sent her our reserve deposit and officially started the countdown to picking up our new baby boy, Maverick. The woman had names for her pups for reference and our choice's name was Raccoon, which was kind of a sign [when I first thought of a name for our newest pup, I picked Meeko due to its uniqueness and the fact that sometimes the markings make them look like a raccoon -- Meeko was the name of the raccoon in Pochahontas. Went with another name due to Meeko sounding like Murphy's nickname of Meesto.. but regardless, the woman named him Raccoon for just that reason too].
[Less than 3 weeks]
[4 weeks]

Friday the 13th came, and with it my first day off of work in a while. With 10+ days of sun before it, and the forecast showing great weather, I planned on a beach day with the babies [since I've been working so much and haven't had the daylight / tides in my favour] and going to Pet-a-Palooza at the local feed store. But a wake up call at 3am with thunder, lightning, and monsoon rain put a damper on the day. Worst storm up here like that in 5 years, the news said, so the day was spent nurturing the babies and drowning out the noise with movies [FORCING me to snuggle up with them in a nice big fluffy comforter on the couch.. I didn't enjoy it AT ALL.. ;-) ;-)].

Around 2pm came a lull in the weather so we took a fun car ride to town. I went in alone for the first round and took advantage of the Pet-a-Palooza sales to get a cute little car pillow bed for Baby Mavvy to lay in on the ride home, a training pocketbag that clips on to your jeans [a variation of a fanny pack, I suppose], some toys, and my two most exciting purchases:

THE FURMINATORRRRRRRRR [crowd goes WILD!]

And a PUPPY BJORN!


We will see how well these purchases work.. if the brush lives up to its talked-up reputation, and if Baby Mavvy's little corgi legs will make the Bjorn a comfortable carrier or not. If not, my mom's chihuahua would love this and be the pampered prince he is. ;-)

The second round in the store was for our pet caricature drawing.

LOVE IT!!!! He got Maya's spunky diva expression perfectly.

But onto a weird note.. almost every night since we found and put a reserve on Baby Mavvy, I've had a vivid dream that Murphy was still alive. Either he never passed away, or like last night's where he died for two weeks and came back to life and was playing with Moses and Maya like nothing had happened. I'm thinking it's a manifestation of subconscious guilt for getting another puppy, but I know and my boyfriend knows and my family and friends know that I, nor anyone, could never replace Meesto MurphMan the Piggo Wiggo. Even so, we are in fact getting a third dog who is a male corgi with similar markings [sable instead of red/white, but similar none-the-less]. I am way more excited for it than guilty, but the guilt is still there, in whatever amount the day may bring. Are these almost-nightly dreams normal for someone who has lost their dog [esp their heart dog]? And do you think they have manifested in the last week due to getting a pup?

And on that note, for multi-pet families who have lost a dog, have you had to wake up your dogs to make sure they were okay? I've had visions of what actually happened blending into the present, and don't know if this is normal and just part of the grief process.

Oh, and I also thought I saw him in our campfire flames the other night.
 
It wasn't my intention to end this post on a weird note, but I just had to ask and see if anyone else has experienced anything like this. Hopefully I'm not alone in the over-paranoid-after-trauma / seeing-signs-of-lost-companions-communicating. :-) Have a great day!