Our New Puppy!

The title of this post are three words I never thought I'd write. Ever. Sure, we've thought about it, even discussed it on a superficial level, but we always firmly settled back on no. We have four kids, why the heck would we add more chaos to our house? We like to travel. We take frequent weekend trips. Jack is allergic to dogs. We both work, it wouldn't be fair to the dog. There were so many good, and completely valid, reasons to say no. Yet, somehow we have said yes.

Our neighbors decided in November to adopt an awesome puppy. He is an Aussiedoodle, half Australian Shepherd/half Poodle. That makes him an "Einstein of dogs" (or so the literature says). He is low shed, and fairly hypoallergenic (thanks to his poodle genes). I've been super excited for them. I've looked at the pictures of the litter, checked out the breeder and had one of those superficial conversations with Thomas, where we concluded it doesn't make sense for our family to adopt one. Kayce and her sister decided to adopt litter mates. However, the breeder was in Ohio. So, they arranged to meet in Pennsylvania. There was another Marylander taking a third puppy and they planned to meet on December 23rd.

But, the third person never showed up. On the morning of December 24th, we met Kayce's puppy, Bear, and he was adorable. The softest dog we've ever felt. And, very sweet. She told us the sad story of his abandoned brother and we thought maybe. As we drove to Mount Vernon, we talked and decided we'd throw caution to the wind and take him...maybe. We weren't 100%, then we heard someone else might be interested and they needed an answer (not in a used car salesman way, but we still felt burdened to make an immediate decision). So, we said 100% yes. And, I've regretted it since.

He's a great puppy, but he's still a puppy. He peed 5x in the house before 10am on Wednesday morning. We watched YouTube videos and learned some house training tricks. Then, he "only" peed in the house 1x all of Thursday, 2x on Friday, yet somehow has managed to go 3x already this morning. I feel like we are back to square one in that area. For some reason, he is waiting until we come inside to pee and peeing much more frequently (like we did with our babies, we are keeping track of food input and output). And, of course, we are losing tons of sleep since we have to take him out in the middle of the night. Puppies are just so much work! Oh, and that doesn't even count the money. Not just what we paid for him, but his crate, x-pen, toys, vet visit, etc. Why oh why did we agree to this???

On the positive side, he has a sweet personality and is good with the kids. He has already learned "sit" and (kind of) comes when we call him. And, Jack shows no signs of allergic reactions. I think once we get out of the puppy stage, he will be a great addition to our family. But, this puppy stage is not fun. Fortunately, I think it is pretty short.

Bear and Gus (Gus has the blue collar)