When Puppy Love Drives You Crazy

I'll be the first to admit that being a fur mom is not always easy - I've definitely learned that in the past few months. 

But the love that pets bring to a household is more than enough to make up for it. I'll go into detail about it with Christine later this month, but I wanted to share this video today. 

I'm grateful for the love that my little pooch brings to me. 

You gotta love the way this still looks! 

Linking up with Emily and Ember Gray...

First Time at the Vet!

I have to say that beyond the on-the-surface things, I know nothing about raising a puppy or owning a dog.

It was great that by adopting him we got a free Vet visit (I hadn’t even thought of taking him to one before they mentioned it!).  I’ve walked and driven by a vet that is walking distance from my house many times over the past 18 years I’ve lived in the area. It looks like such a nice place and I had also noticed it was open on weekends so I immediately thought I’d take Lance there. Luckily they have pretty good reviews as well, so I’m not just choosing the nearby option.

As his visit got closer my list of questions to ask the vet grew. There is so much to know about owning a puppy! What do I feed him? How often should I feed him? Can he eat human food? How often should I clean his teeth? Should I get him a sweater for the cold?

The list went on and on and on. I googled “what questions to ask on your first vet visit” and other similar worded phrases.

Going into the appointment with a typed up list of questions (with spaces to write down the answers) was a little bit embarrassing, but I figured that if I am to be a good pet mommy I need to be prepared and do everything I need to do in order to be informed on everything that has to do with being a mommy to Lance.

The Vet was very receptive to my questions. I told her I had a list and she told me that it was awesome that I was prepared. The appointment itself was pretty painless. He was friendly with the vet and the vet techs. He sniffed them and let them pet him. It was only when she wanted to take a look at his teeth and ears that he got a bit upset.

They took him to the back to get a better look (she said she didn’t want him to associate the bad feeling of having his teeth and ears looked at with me). She said that everything looked good. She puts his age at around 4 or 5 months. His front teeth are adult teeth but the side ones are still puppy teeth and those come in at 6 months.

She gave me some good tricks, including how to brush his teeth (daily) and how a good way to potty train him (although I know this will be more trying on me than on him!).

She also mentioned that she thinks he had some sort of bad treatment before since he is very skittish around strangers. He warms up quickly, though.

We’ll be going back in early January so that he can get his vaccine boosters – so until then no pee or poo sniffing!

First Time Puppy Owner Observations

As I mentioned on my last post, this is my first time being a pet owner. Sure, we’ve had birds and mice and even turtles (my mom still has 2), but I’ve never had a pet that I really took care of or that lived more than a short while.

And they have never been just mine.

Here are my observations on being a puppy owner.

They are so super sweet!  Maybe it’s not all of them (but my guess is that it is) – but Lance is super-duper sweet. If I make kissy noises he will come and give me kisses. I love it!

Training! I know that no two dogs are alike, but I think (and I hope I’m no jinxing myself here) that Lance will be pretty easy to train. He’s got sitting (with treats) down after just a few attempts at it. (Of course, he had a previous owner who may or may not have done some training with him).

Walking! One of the reasons we got a Chihuahua was that he doesn’t necessarily have to go on a walk every day or twice a day. They can easily be condo dogs that get their exercise from running around inside. However, I like taking him out! I’ve always liked walking as my form of exercise (because it doesn’t involve sweating for the most part) and this gives me a great reason to go out.  Lance is a good walker. He knows to stay on the sidewalk and not run. He doesn’t bark at other dogs and he doesn’t jump at strangers.

Sleep Time! This is something I’m pretty sure he was trained on. From the very first night he crawled into the bed I made for him and spent the entire night there.

Food! I get a feeling that he was fed from the table in his previous home. I’ve been giving him a Beggin Strip (mostly because of the commercials). I have also bought him some training treats.

As time goes on… well, I will definitely have more observations.  We started training classes last night and we will go to the vet this afternoon.

Expect more posts on Lance!

I've Gone To The Dogs!

Why try to say it in any other way:

WE GOT A PUPPY!!

I had always wanted a dog and my mom would never get one. She doesn’t like the poo or pee that comes with it or any of the kissing it involves (although she does think they are cute and will pet them if she is around them). Thomas didn’t want a dog either.

But, you see, Thomas tends to give me what I want. I don’t know if this will wear out the longer we’re married but I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts.

I had bombarded him with texts and messages of little cute doggies I had found on different websites and then on Friday night I asked (told) to go to the local Animal Shelter to see the dogs there.

Thomas: You have to promise that we won’t get a dog tomorrow.

Me: I promise, we won’t.

He pauses, looks at the TV and laughs.

Me: What are you laughing at?

Thomas: I get the feeling that we will leave there with a puppy.

I don’t know if it’s just that he really liked the dog (he would never admit it if he did) or he saw how much the dog loved me or that I really liked the puppy, but I didn’t even have to fight.

We headed to the shelter at about 4pm on Saturday afternoon. We walked up and down the kennel and saw a lot of large dogs. Thomas said he would have, if anything, liked a big dog, but we live in a condo with no yard, so that wasn’t an option. We finally saw the small dogs. There were a lot of those, too.

Thomas and I don’t tend to agree on many things. For example, he wanted one with long hair and I wanted short hair. What we did agree one was on a younger dog. We didn’t want one that already came with health issues (and I hope they will end up adopted). We found a few doggies that I liked. But I kept going back to one of them.

When we first walked into the shelter a family was looking at him. When they left I went over to see what the fuss was over. He was sticking his little paws out from underneath the gate and trying to lick me when I got near. He got to me right there. None of the other dogs were doing that. Many of them were barking. Thomas was still looking around the kennel when a big group of people walked in causing all the dogs to bark. Including the two other dogs in the small cage as the one I liked. That one, though, stayed quiet, just looking around.

A non-barker! A small dog! Short hair! A puppy!

It was meant to be. We looked around a big longer and then got one of the workers to show the puppy to us.

He came to me and licked me, jumped on me… he knew it was me that was supposed to adopt him. Thomas stood at first, and the dog finally came around to him. But he definitely preferred me.

After asking questions for a while, the worker asked what we thought. Thomas said something about it being up to me. So I said yea, if it’s up to me let’s get him! That was it!

Soooo I’m sorry if this becomes  somewhat of a doggy blog… but it’s my first pet, so I’m going to be full of things to ask and say!