I was surprised with a new family member for Christmas by my girls and husband.
Two weeks before Christmas, we (hubby and I) suddenly had an “errand” to do while the girls were busy with a work commitment.
Mon amour and I drove an hour and a half until dusk. I had a feeling we were picking her up, but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to spoil the surprise.
I’m not going to lie, though, I kept thinking “how are we going to get a puppy back home another hour and a half when we have no harness, no kennel, no leash, no food, no water?” But for once, I just kept my mouth shut. 🤣
We arrived just after dusk to a little dog play area off the highway. A woman and her son exited the car with two little yellow lab puppies.
After watching them a bit, I held our puppy. She was so sweet and her tail never stopped wagging. It’s hard deciding between two sweet little puppies (and the cute little boy kept trying to convince me to take both lol) but my instinct was to take our puppy. She was a little bit darker in color, and had a perpetual wagging tail.
The drive home wasn’t bad. For the first ten minutes, I held her up to look out the front window because she was squirming so badly. But she settled in and fell asleep.
We stopped at the first Petsmart near the highway. I’m not even sure where, maybe Brighton. We started loading up on puppy stuff, including a gingerbread harness, leash, bed, kennel, food, water bowl…we definitely looked like first time puppy parents! (Not really for us, we both had dogs in the past, but our first puppy together).
It has now been almost a month. We are settling in, getting better at recognizing what she needs and her little idiosyncrasies:
She really is a sweet dog, and rather smart. Having a “new baby” around isn’t always easy, but the girls have been so good with her.
We have taken her hiking twice so far, both around 3 miles, on Christmas Day and New Years Day.
I took her running today, 2.5 miles total. She does well when we are running, always watching that she’s not far ahead, but gets scared around barking dogs and sometimes cars. We keep taking her out daily until she gets more calm.
Babies are cute, but they are so much work. I will be happy when she’s finally trained and a little calmer.
Who can resist this cute face, though?
Love and Peace to you,