When we last left off, all manner of plague had swept through the house, Goose was about to have an eyeball removed, and I was very busy falling in love with every single foster who came through the door, all of whom Goose hated.

I was very blasé about the surgery thing right up until the actual day. Then I was a nervous wreck. But all went well, they did a great job of making sure Goose wasn’t in any pain during her recovery, and there were really only two noteworthy issues in the aftermath.

First, that Goose just does not understand how to navigate the world in a cone. At all. She would go to get a drink and completely overshoot the water bowl. She would lift a leg to scratch the side of her face and then sit there, waving her little paw in the air and/or scraping it against the cone, thoroughly confused. When I tell you it was a VERY PITIFUL two weeks, trust me.

Second, that I’d felt totally confident in our treatment decision until the final days of waiting for her pathology to come back. And then I started worrying that they’d call and say “Well, that wasn’t anything! Too bad we removed her eye!” I wasn’t wishing for her to have something awful, you understand, but I am SUPER gifted at convincing myself I’ve done something wrong to someone I love. No worries, though, because it did turn out to be cancer. Yay? (As cancers in dogs go, this is the one to have. The eye is gone, the cancer is gone, and that’s that.)

While Goose was convalescing, Turnip was very busy burrowing into my heart. But Goose didn’t show signs of liking her, so I dutifully made sure her listing was current on the rescue site and tried to remind myself that we were not keeping her.

But. Um. Goose was quite grumpy while she was in the cone, understandably, and she… did not give Turnip a hard time. In fact…

… more and more often…

… they would opt to cuddle up together.

Hmmm. I mean, they didn’t play, but Goose couldn’t play while she was in the cone, anyway. (Did I mention she was pitiful? Every now and then she’d manage to grab a toy from her bin, then she’d set it down and overshoot while trying to pick it back up, trapping the toy under the cone and out of reach. She’d grumble and poke at it for a while and then give up. SO. SAD.)

“I think Goose could grow to love Turnip,” I said to Otto.

“Uh huh,” he said.

“Look, THEY ARE CUDDLING,” I’d say, while they jockeyed for position on my lap.

“Well, they’re both trying to occupy as much of you as possible, that’s true,” he said. He looked at my face. “Listen, if you want to keep her, keep her.”

“But… I don’t know if Goose REALLY likes her. And we just spent all that money on Goose’s surgery. I don’t know if it makes sense.”

Otto shrugged. “Do you love her?”

“Otto, I love them ALL!” I answered, dropping my head into my hands.

Well, Turnip couldn’t be officially released for adoption until she was spayed, and I don’t know if you remember how Goose had a whole rigamarole surrounding whether or not she was spayed, but believe it or not, I ended up calling the vet a couple weeks before her surgery to say that I thought I saw a scar. Did they want me to bring her in so they could look? The vet—who knows me, and remembers the drama with Goose—-laughed and said to just wait until surgery day, because she needed her booster shots, anyway, and they’d take a look then.

So her spay day came, and I brought her in, reminded them to check her, and they said no problem. Then half the day went by and I figured I’d just been seeing things and she was in surgery. But no! They just hadn’t gotten to her for a while. When they did, they doped her up and shaved her belly, found the scar, and declared her already spayed. When I arrived she was still completely stoned and wobbling back and forth. But I picked her up and she made a great effort to focus her eyes on mine, and then licked my face. Sort of a Turnip-ese “Oh, it’s you. I like you!”

Reader, we adopted her. She is ridiculous and tiny and makes me laugh, and Goose is slowly warming up to her.

In the meantime, the longest two weeks in the history of the world finally ended, and I took Goose in to get her stitches out, and they took her cone off, and she was FREEEEEEEE!

(Look at that smile!)

Now Otto and I like to play a super fun game where if Goose is begging for food (Goose is ALWAYS begging for food) or asking you to play or for a belly rub—basically, any time she clearly wants something from one of us which isn’t being IMMEDIATELY delivered—the other one reproaches with, “She had CANCER.” Translation: You’re a monster; give that dog everything she wants.

Is it morbid? Maybe. Is it hilarious? DEFINITELY.

Once the cone was off, it was time to take some pictures for Turnip’s adoption announcement (the rescue shares these on social media; I don’t mean I was sending out cards or anything) (I’m not quite that level of “crazy dog lady” yet). Otto did an excellent job of staying with Goose’s good side and Turnip did an excellent job of… being a Turnip.

Note that Goose is doing exactly what Otto is telling her to do, and Turnip is the literal embodiment of Maximum Derp.

Otto managed to get some cute pics, and of course every time I grabbed my phone to take a pic of them being cute, Turnip would move, because Turnip is basically a puppy and hardly ever holds still. For example, they were side by side in their matching sweatshirts (shut up) in the kitchen one day, and by the time I got the phone out, Turnip had danced halfway across the kitchen (though she did come back and sit down again because I had treats and she knows she has to sit for a treat).

14-pound Goose now seems enormous next to not-quite-7-pound Turnip, and if you remember Spike and Chester from Looney Tunes, that’s basically what’s happening around here most of the time. But it’s okay, because we are having a lot of fun. Dogs make everything better.

And although I suspect Goose wouldn’t admit it, I think she’s having fun, too. Turnip is definitely having fun, except that yesterday I went to trim her nails for the first time since I’ve had her (the vet did it for me, before), and she turned into a tiny Tasmanian devil. But a couple of treats made everything better.

I couldn’t get the entire outfit onto her—I suspect she realizes we’re teasing her—but please to enjoy the Dread Pirate Goosefeathers, living her best monocular life (annoying little sister notwithstanding).