WIPocalypse 2012

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Life with Puppy

I posted about this on some of the BB's I follow and haven't had time to say anything here yet but we got a puppy! Erich and I have been talking about getting one all winter and we finally did it last week. It just sort of happened, really. I had been promising my little brother for a few months that he could spend the night with us and finally set up a date for the Friday night before Easter. We were going to return him to my parents on Saturday afternoon and then go to church with them for the Easter Vigil. Well, around Tuesday we got hold of an American Bulldog breeder in the area and she had free time Friday night (and a couple puppies too) so we thought we'd go check it out and take my brother along since any dog we get must do well with children.

I didn't have high hopes as there were only 2 puppies up for sale at the moment- one male (10 wks old) and a female (6 months old). The breeder had had a litter in January and the male had been spoken for but the family decided at the last minute that he would be too big. The female was from a previous litter and the breeder was selling her because she was over her limit of permanent dogs. I thought it would be nice to go check them out though as they were planning to have a summer litter. Well, that lasted a whole 5 minutes. When we got there, the male puppy came right up to me and licked my hands and let me pet him immediately. We stayed for over an hour and played with him and watched him interact with the breeder and the other dogs in the house. We asked all sorts of questions and the breeder asked us some of her own about our intentions for the puppy. The breeder gave us a reasonable price and we accepted but we had to hold off on paying because I didn't bring the checkbook. That's how sure I was that we were going to wait for the next litter. We ended up spending the rest of the evening puppy-proofing the house and browsing the pet sections of several local pet supply stores.

Then we picked up Leland early Saturday morning...


Leland 4/8/07

He's been with us a week now and he's still the sweet little guy we fell in love with at the breeder. He's adjusted really well to his new surroundings and is being spoiled rotten by our family:) The fact that he's going to be huge (could be as much as 130 lbs full grown) doesn't bother us, we like that actually. I'll be anxious for the vet's opinion on his size when we go for shots on Wednesday.

It's been quite an experience so far, with both of us being first time dog owners and I'm learning some interesting things...

-The dog is training me just as much as I am him.
-The dog may actually be smarter than me.
-Dogs can actually snore as loud as my husband.
-My dining room carpet apparently resembles grass to the point that the dog uses it as such (though this has been remedied by a wonderful invention called No Go spray).
-The dog is a living vacuum cleaner.
-I think what "they" say about animals is right, they really do lower your blood pressure and relax you, at least when they're behaving.
-The dog makes a nice lap blanket when he's not trying to chew on my shirt.
-The dog is a wonderful walking buddy and companion.

4 comments:

Carolyn said...

Leland has the sweetest little wrinkly puppy face!! Congrats on your new baby. :) Sounds like you got him from a caring, responsible breader which is so important. As for the things little Leland has taught you - I can relate! My dalmation (Jagr) snores SOOO loudly too! lol And I defintely believe that those furry babies help to lower BP and ease stress - and they are definitely little piggies when it comes to food. :) Enjoy your new companion. :)

Karoline said...

Aww what a cutie :)

Hazel said...

Awww what a sweet thing. I always haad a dog around when I grew up and they are great pets. I own two ignoramus cats now - not quite the same!

Anonymous said...

It sounds like you are really smitten and he with you. And he looks so cute how could you of resisted?