I wasn’t sure how my wife would respond when I sent her the text message. After all, it’s not every day that I send a text calling her a name.
Actually, the message referred to both of us.
“You know that we’re DINKWADs, right?”
We’re both Millennials, so I should have known that she can Google something even faster than I can most days.
The smiley face emoji that Jen sent back was enough reassurance for me to know that she understood that what I had just called her — or should I say us — wasn’t an insult. In fact, it’s not even a word. Instead, it’s an acronym that has made its way into our vernacular thanks so social media. I had never heard it until an article about DINKWADs appeared in my newsfeed a few weeks ago.
It stands for Double Income, No Kids, With A Dog, and it describes us at this phase in our lives. We both work. We don’t have any children. And when I read the article a couple of weeks ago, we did have a dog.
One part of our lives, however, has changed in the last two weeks. We no longer have a dog. Now, we have two. (Does that now make us DINKWDs?)
The day before our golden retriever Santiago turned 3 on Feb. 18, we adopted a 5-year-old Bernese mountain dog from a rescue organization in northeast Indiana.
We decided several months ago that we wanted to bring home a second dog. We started searching for either a golden retriever or a Bernese mountain dog, as both are such good natured and calm dogs who are about as lovey-dovey as can be.
Our hearts almost melted when the rescue organization sent us a picture of 100-pound Alicia sitting in the front seat of a car on her way home from being checked out at the vet.
Alicia spent the first five years of her life at a puppy mill and had more litters than she probably should have had. In fact, the vet had a challenging time when he spayed her due to all of the scar tissue from previous C-sections.
When she could no longer make the puppy mill owners any money, they gave her up. Treating any animal that way disgusts me, but I digress.
After several conversations with the kind folks who were keeping her until they found a permanent home, we decided to give it a try.
Part of the adoption process involves having the dog you’re adopting meet your current dog to make sure they get along. We met at a pet store so that both dogs could interact, and an hour later we were on our way home with our Golden in one car and our tricolored Berner in the other.
We have had Alicia for 11 days, and all is going well. She is one of the most affectionate dogs we have ever met, as she is never more than a few inches from us — and more often than not she’s less than an inch away.
Her black, white and rust colored coat is thick and silky, her paws are the size of a polar bear, and she is built like a steel beam. We didn’t think she knew how to bark until Fed Ex delivered a package a few days ago. Her bark is as strong as her build, which means we’ve just added a brand-new security system to our house.
Our golden retriever is a bit jealous when he’s not the center of attention. In a couple of months, however, we’re predicting they’ll be best buds. Our hope is to turn them both into therapy dogs so that we can take them to hospitals, nursing homes and other places so they can bring a smile to someone’s face the same way they do to us.
In the meantime, we’re trying to teach Alicia what a dog toy is, how to lick a snack of peanut butter off a spoon, and quite simply just how to be a dog.
Stop and say hi this spring or summer when you see us walking a Golden and Berner down the Rivergreenway.
jdpeeper2@hotmail.com
