When Horton met Hazel

The day Hurricane Hazel rolled into our lives, our lives changed forever. Socks were destroyed, peace and quiet was no more, devastation ensued. But we would have it no other way.

We knew we wanted a second frenchie but we had so many questions and concerns about adding another to our lives, as well as Hortons’. Would Horton get jealous? How will he react? Would they get along? Thinking back to how Horton completely changed our lives and our daily routines, we knew it would be an adjustment but we thought it was the right time.

First Day Home

For the 2 hour car ride home, Hazel sniffed her blankie and looked in every nook and cranny of her car seat. When she was satisfied that she’d sniffed all the smells, and had seen all that can be seen, she crawled into my lap and slept like a sweet little cream bear, exhausted from taking in her new surroundings.

We had put Hazel in a little Christmas box to bring her home. Extra, I know. But it was days before Christmas, and a puppy in a box was what I wanted for Christmas as a kid, so what the heck, doing it. My inner child was jumping for joy. Anyways, when we walked through the door with Hazel, Horton didn’t seem to notice. Once we put the box down, boy did he notice.

Once Horton got his sniffs in, we took her out of her box so she could explore her new home. We could already tell she was a brave little girl, trying to get behind the cabinets, running circles around the Christmas tree and introducing herself to all the dust bunnies under the couch. Like, oh hey, how ya doin’, nice to nom you. Horton kind of stood back and watched while this baby rat ran around the house, getting into all the nooks and crannies he was forbidden to explore, wondering how is it getting away with this??

Getting used to Each Other

Horton has known a life without Hazel, but Hazel hasn’t. So we knew Hazel would adjust quickly (which she did), but that it would take more time for Horton to. She had no sense of how smol she was, but her big sassy personality made up for that. It didn’t take long for Hazel to start tackling Horton like a linebacker. But Horton, being the gentle patient boy he is, just let her attack him! So much so that her sharp puppy teeth were cutting up his cheeks :( At one point, I was screaming “Horton kick her ass! Show her who’s boss!”, but as it turns out, Hazel was and still is the boss.

A week in, I swear Horton was thinking ok, when is she going away now? Sorry bud, don’t have an answer for you on that one.

The sibling rivalry was pretty real pretty fast. Hazel being the little bulldozer that she was, stole every toy, slept in every bed and took every opportunity she could to steal our attention in the loudest most sassy fashion possible. The making of #HurricaneHazel. It should be a documentary.

But, there were moments of peace and quiet where they would snuggle up and have a little snoozle together. I live for those sweet moments.

Challenges

Ever hear people say “Oh, the first dog will just train the second one!” or “A second dog is not that much more work”. Lies, all lies. Maybe it’s the huge difference in their personalities, or we’ve just forgotten how hard it is to train a puppy, but Hazel really put us through our paces.

One of the things that we worried about was meal time. We wanted to make sure that neither of them developed food aggression. We made it a point to feed them together pretty much immediately to teach Horton that it’s ok if shes around when he’s eating. One problem we didn’t anticipate, was that Hazel ate much faster than Horton. She’d hoover her food and then stick her snooter in Hortons food. And again, Horton being a pushover, didn’t do anything but bury his head in his food and try to eat around her face.

Three little piggies

We could tell Horton was getting jealous of Hazel. I think all siblings feel some sort of jealous towards one another, but we wanted to make sure Horton didn’t get too jealous that it turned into resentment. So we try to make sure he gets individual time with us - I take him to the gym on the weekends, and Daddio takes him for morning coffees in the park. There are also the little things we try to do to make Horton feel special. We try to give Horton treats first when they’re both begging for snackos and he gets the primo snuggle spots on our lap and in the bed.

Speaking of bed, we don’t know how this happened or maybe we do and we’ve chosen to block it out, but the two of them always seem to end up upstairs in the bed with us. This is not so much a challenge for them, as it is for us. The moment we turn off the lights in the living room, they’re at the bottom of the stairs giving me puppy eyes, waiting for me to move the gate to let them upstairs. Turning off the lights is like a reverse bat signal to them. The bed is calling to be warmed, and the dogs answer that call. They win most nights. We’re weak what can I say.

We’re still adjusting to life with Hazel even though we’ve had her for 9 months now. Horton has (mostly) stopped walking away when she snuggles into bed with him. We’ve (mostly) figured out what routine works best for her. Progress!

Does anyone relate to any of this? Do you have any questions? Comment below and I’ll be sure to get back to you!