Hello and welcome! I'm Andrea Mullins. I clean teeth for a living, my husband Ned is a lineman for the electric company, and our son Leonardo is 16 and taller than both of us now. We live in a ranch house on the north side of Chippewa Falls, ten minutes from Lake Wissota, with a big fenced back yard, which as far as the dogs are concerned is the only important thing about the house.

We've had three dogs in thirteen years, and this page is for all of them: Sadie, who we lost last year, Rusty, who is the biggest baby in Chippewa County, and Pepper, who runs the place.

[ Sadie | Rusty | Pepper | The Picture Album | Rusty's Tricks | In Memory of Sadie ]

Sadie
Black Labrador retriever · April 1986 – February 10, 1998

Sadie was our first dog. We brought her home when Leonardo was three and she grew up right alongside him. She was solid and a little heavy, as Labs get, and she never met a stick, a lake or a person she didn't like. She taught Rusty how to be a dog, and she was patient about it. Her hips gave out the winter she was eleven, almost twelve. I've given her a page of her own: In Memory of Sadie.

Rusty
Golden retriever · born April 1993 · home June 12, 1993

Rusty came home at eight weeks old, a fluffy little thing you could hold in one hand. He's about eighty pounds now, a deep red-gold, and he still thinks he fits in your lap. He loves the lake, snow, leaf piles, water in any form, and every person who has ever come to our door, including the meter reader. He is not a watchdog. He is a welcome-dog.

Being a hygienist, I brush his teeth twice a week. He thinks it's a treat. I have given up trying to explain the difference.

Pepper
Terrier mix, about 3 · adopted May 9, 1998

Three months after Sadie died we went to the county humane society "just to look." That was our first mistake and the best one we ever made. Pepper is a scruffy black-and-white terrier-something, about twenty pounds, with a white chest, white feet, one ear that stands up and one that doesn't. She was nervous the first week and hasn't been nervous about a thing since. She barks at squirrels, the mailman, the garden hose and Rusty, in that order, and Rusty lets her boss him around all day long.

The Picture Album

Click on a little picture to see it bigger. The big ones take a minute on a slow modem, so be patient. The film ones came from our 35mm camera and I scanned the prints this spring on the scanner that came with our new computer. The orange date in the corner is on there when Ned remembered to switch it on, which is about half the time. The other half I went by what I wrote on the back of the prints. The two newest are from the Sony Mavica we bought in April, which puts the pictures right on a floppy disk. I haven't bought a roll of film since.

About the pictures:

Rusty's first day. Eight weeks old, on the kitchen floor, tail straight up, and Sadie giving him the once-over. Leonardo was 10 and couldn't keep his hands off him. Sadie decided that afternoon that the puppy was hers, and he followed her everywhere for the rest of her life.

Lake Wissota. Ned threw the stick, both dogs went in, and Sadie came out with it, like always. Rusty was a gangly year-old and hadn't figured out yet that he was never going to beat her to anything. Ned forgot the date on this roll. I didn't forget to write it on the back.

The leaf pile. Leonardo raked this pile three times that afternoon because Rusty kept jumping in it, and then he gave up and jumped in too. Sadie had more sense.

Rusty in the snow. He'd been leaping through snow up to his chest, and he sat up just long enough for the picture. Sadie watched from the deck steps. By then she liked to supervise more than participate.

Pepper's first day. On the front step in her brand-new red collar, still not sure about any of us. Rusty lay right down next to her like he'd been waiting for her. The tulips were Ned's mother's idea.

Caught! The couch is off limits. It has always been off limits. This is what I found when we got home from Ned's mother's on a Sunday afternoon. Look at those faces. They know. (One of the first pictures off the new Mavica, and one of my favorites.)

Rusty's pool. We bought a kiddie pool for Rusty in August because it was hot and he kept lying in the flower bed. It is about two feet too small for him, and he doesn't care. Ned is on the hose. Pepper doesn't go in the pool. She barks at the hose instead.

Rusty's Tricks

Pepper's tricks: she can open the back screen door with her nose, and she can get Rusty off the good end of the couch just by looking at him. Neither one was our idea.