JOE & PEANUT

Dynamic doggie duo

Ebony and ivory. Yin and yang. Peanut and Joe. The orphaned siblings have seen some tough times. Abandoned along the side of a highway as pups, they were rescued and cared for at a shelter until Jessica Mullins-Ta, a law student at the time, adopted them. Actually, it was supposed to go like this: Jessica would adopt poor Peanut and Jessica’s mother would take Joe. But Mom, Jessica says, soon decided that the animals had become dependent on each other and needed to be together. That’s how Jessica ended up with the doggie duo sharing her tiny apartment.

“It was cramped, but we got by.”

Today, six or so years later, they all live with Jessica’s husband, Thomas, and their daughter Lola-Iris in a Lake Highlands home where Joe lounges and (despite his attempts to be “manly”) cuddles all day with pink fuzzy toys, and Peanut roams the yard barking at “imagined intruders” (hence her svelte physique compared to Joe’s, her owner notes). They are polar opposites, Mullins-Ta says.

“Joe is laid back and lazy; Peanut is the neurotic and starved-for-attention older sister,” she says. “But they love each other, like a human brother and sister.”

Peanut protectively follows her human baby sister around.

“She’s always about three steps behind Lola-Iris.” But the dogs are no real threat to anyone, their momma says.

“They might show some aggression toward inanimate objects, but if an actual intruder ever shows up, we’re screwed.”