Puppy Love.

My kids wanted a dog.  My husband wanted a dog.  Me?  Not so much.

I've had a dog before and he was CRAZY.  Like I mean bat-shit crazy.  We got him back in the day when pet stores sold dogs.  I'm pretty sure he was a puppy mill dog.  I tried like crazy to bring him over to the sane side.  Spent hundreds at the vet, and another few hundred with trainers. Nothing seemed to work.  He attacked just about everyone, including me.  After years of misfortune,  I found a great girl who owned the puppy day care I sent him to and she gladly took him and raised him as her own.  Thank goodness.  He needed a better life and I just couldn't give it to him.  I was so ill-equipped.

Fast forward 10 plus years, and our youngest ginger prince is going into grade 1.  I felt a solid tug on my heart strings but promised myself I wouldn't do anything rash for a year.  And by rash I mean begging my husband for a reversal so we could have another baby, get a job, or get a dog.  Yes, I know what you are thinking...she is bat-shit crazy.  And you would be right.

I held strong and summer was approaching.  I had made it!  Nothing crazy!  Whoo hoo!  But then the dog talks started...the ginger princes are telling me how they are going to take such good care of a dog.  They will clean up after her (almost never) and walk her (not really), and feed her (only when prompted).  I put my foot down and said no.  Then my husband is telling me how he really wants one.  Well, 3 against one, never wins.

I found a very reputable breeder in our city and luck would have it that he just had two litters of the cutest Brittany puppies.  We headed over to his place and walked into puppy playground.  He had 12 puppies!  We carefully looked at all of them.  We knew we wanted a little girl (to even out the playing field at home) and my oldest prince fell in love.  He knew her instantly and she knew him.  It was a moment that we will never forget.  We placed a collar on her and said goodbye as she was too young to come home just yet.  My prince cried.  He missed her already.

A few weeks went by and it was finally time to pick her up!  We were crazy excited!  For someone who was against it at first, you would never know it now.  I bought everything I could think of for her. We went to get her and brought her home.  She cried in her kennel, for what seemed like FOREVER, on the drive home.  Our youngest prince felt so awful for her that he cried just as much as she did!  Poor guy.

She has settled in nicely, and is a complete sweetheart.  Everyone who meets her loves her. We are still dealing with the puppy stage, namely chewing on everything, including us!  But we have enrolled in classes and I am determined to make this work.  No more bat-shit crazy stuff.  

We named her Scout after the character in my favorite book, To Kill A Mockingbird.
Puppy love.