How can one couple accumulate so many pets?
It all started when I moved here (Alabama) with the large yard and I didn't work any longer. I had all this time on my hands and all this room.
We had four dogs to start with when we moved here from Ilinois. After four years and the death of one of them from old age, we decided to get another one to fill that void.
We got her at the Humane Society's millenium adoption Day in 2000.For two years we had this group of pets. We visited a flea market called Dog Days here and it is a country type area where mostly hunting dogs are brought to be sold along with the regular chickens, ducks, rabbits, goats, you name it. There are also produce booths and the regular flea market items.
Sugar and Corkie got along great, but Sugar was really needing someone of her speed since Corkie had a knee problem and couldn't play and the other dogs were teenagers in human years. So we went to the Humane Society's annual adoptathon and got Lucy, a 7 month old Beagle mix. She had Sugar would play outdoors nearly all day, romping and tumbling around. It was love at first meeting and they were inseparable.
So we are up to 6!! Yikes. Then tragedy struck and Sugar was diagnosed with epilepsy. The Vet assured us with the new drugs that were available she could live a normal life. Within several months she died despite all of our efforts and medications. She died in my husbands arms as we drove to the emergency vet 30 minutes away.
So we are down to 5 again.
And Lucy is without her favorite Buddy and she was grieving as were we. So we wanted to get another Boxer mix or a full blooded one. We went to the Humane Society again and they didn't have any dogs of that breed. I was settling for a cute little black and white puppy which was supposedly part beagle. Her mama, I thought was in the pen with her. It turned out that the little beagle was taking over a litter of coonhound mixed pups who's mother had not been able to nurse them. My husband still had his heart set on a pure bred boxer. So within a week we bought a little brindle girl who was only 5 weeks old. The woman lied about her age saying she was seven weeks old. Everything went well with 7 dogs for a couple of years almost.
Then one day while we were at Petsmart getting supplies, they had a shelter there with adoptable pets.
The man had set a cage with a small dog in it on top of another cage with a barking dog below her.
Now number 8 comes into the picture, Bindi She was only 8 lbs and her hair was patchy and she had a swollen spot on one side of her neck. I felt sorry for her. She was just a sweet little girl and also had heartworm. It made me so angry to think that this little girl had to cope with a disease that is easily preventable. After treatment, she bounced back and is now a really healthy happy mama's girl.
So that was in February of 2005.
In July we went to another Saturday trip to get supplies at Petsmart. There was a skinny boxer mix about two years old sitting with his little butt on his sister's back. The man explained that the two of them were rescued that morning from a kill shelter and they were going to be put down later that day. The shelter must have already given Theo a tranquilizer as he was wobbly and really out of it. I thought he must have something wrong with him neurologically. We adopted him anyway and found it was just that he had been drugged.
He was a real sweetheart and still is.Everytime I look at him I am amazed that someone was actually about to end this great dog's life without a second thought. Our three oldest dogs that we brought with us are 15, 15 and 12 years old now and it makes me sad everytime I think that one day they will be gone.
Until they pass on, I intend to enjoy every minute of their company.
So that was number 5. 
This was Maggie and number 6.
So Stormy was number 7.
