I walk into my home each day, greeted by two wagging tails, two pairs of floppy ears, and inevitably a puddle of puppy pee landing on my shoe. Is this an ideal situation? No, to say the least, but my family and I are doing our best to make raising two puppies at the same time work.

Last year, both of my family's old and beloved Corgis passed away, leaving us with a dog shaped space in our hearts. So after looking for awhile, we decided on a Boxer mix named Ike to be our newest edition. Ike immediately presented a different scenario than we remembered, since we hadn't had a puppy in nine years. Ike was generally well behaved but had a little problem with excitable peeing. Many a guest could testify to getting more than they bargained for when entering our home. However, we took Ike to training classes, and he was on his way to becoming a well trained pup.

That is until my parents remembered a deal they made a decade ago with my little sister: "For my 16th birthday you have to promise to get me a puppy." This deal developed by a five-year-old ended up becoming legally binding. And as her birthday approached we found ourselves once again on the hunt for another puppy.

Enter Oliver, a chocolate colored dachshund and Shih Tzu mix and our first go at smaller dog breed. Oliver weighed nothing when we first got him and was timid and calm -- until he woke my parents and sister up each night with his howling. (I got out of this because he wasn't, technically, my puppy). Oliver and Ike hit it off quickly and immediately became connected at the tail. This connection, eventually, would cause all sorts of chaos.

If we thought handling one puppy was a laborious task, adding another one increased the difficulty 10-fold. Ike, watching Ollie get away with behaviors he had grown out of, started to jump up on furniture, pee in the house and bark at night. Oliver, watching his "big brother" run around in the woods, began to follow him, getting lost among the brown of the forest. Needless to say, each of their bad habits rubbed off on each other regardless of the training we tried and still try to implement.

They, like toddlers, need constant supervision. As I type this, my sister deals with the aftermath of a roll in a swamp that Oliver and Ike got into. It is easy to find ways to get messy when you live on a farm like my dogs do. Often, I miss the calm of my old dogs, Stubby and Rusty. But for now, we are just trying to live in the moments that make the puppies worthwhile -- like when they are curled up asleep.

All jokes aside, we take this new venture a day at a time and will someday look back at the puppy days, wishing they could be little again. For now, we live for the days when they simply listen to a command, and with any luck we will soon have two calm and well behaved dogs.