A few weeks ago my brother and sister rescued a beautiful dog named Maeby in New York and the day they sent us a picture of her I was surprised at how strong my longing to have my own dog was! I think I even texted my sister, "I'm jealous you're having all the new dog-mom feelings!". I've been slowly converting to dogs ever since one of our favorite couples from my program, Austin and Bri, introduced us to their beautiful mini-Australian Shepherd, Nova, last summer right before they left us for Kansas. She was the sweetest, smartest little puppy I'd ever seen and was the first time I'd ever really understood the allure of a dog. Ever since they moved, Dave and I have kept loose tabs on the breeders around here who breed the mini-Aussies and then we rented a puppy early in January because I was feeling dog-hungry (is that a thing?).
I'd never seen Dave so happy as the night we rented the puppy, haha. It seemed like every anxiety, stress, and worry disappeared when he was playing with the pup. It almost broke my heart when we had to say goodnight and give her back and I was pretty sad that I had a headache from being with her all night because we'd rented her partially to see how bad my physical response was from my allergy.
We woke up the next morning (Saturday) and Dave casually said, "I was thinking we could maybe go see one of the breeders around here to just ask some questions and see if you have a bad allergy response to the Australian Shepherds too." I pretty immediately dismissed him with a laugh and said, "That's just going to make you depressed because it's going to remind you what you can't have..." But then he showed me a picture of this little guy who was already 11 weeks old and I couldn't resist.
We hurried and called the breeder to ask if we could just come up and meet him and ask some questions and she let us come within the hour. I had absolutely no intention of actually going home with him because I knew it was a terrible life decision to get a puppy we'd need to housetrain while we were both in school and working, as well as with my health being subpar--I didn't need another potential allergen in the house.
But....then I held him.
And you guys...it was love at first sight. I seriously felt like I was high after holding him. Dave described it as watching me "melt". I instantly loved him and didn't want to let him go. But Dave knew that I wasn't totally ready to commit to getting a puppy and didn't want me to make a decision "under the influence" (haha), so he told her we'd go home and talk it over and get back to her with our answer.
I was still pretty torn after we went and saw him for the above reasons, but I felt like I was on cloud nine and my resolve was getting weaker and weaker. Dave was really good about not pushing me because he wanted to make sure I was 100% on board by myself, but I could tell he wanted to bring him home obviously, and I eventually decided to go with my gut feeling--which was that a puppy would be the perfect for us right now. So we called her back and went to pick him up later that day!
It's no secret that life has been difficult for us lately with all of my pain, and even though I've found some relief from my pelvic pain recently (MIRACLE!), I've still got a lot of muscle and joint pain that affects me emotionally when I can't do everything I need to for school and life. Remus has been a little ray of sunshine in our life right now. I don't know if it's just because I'm too busy being worried about him peeing on the carpet or if it's major the oxytocin release, but I definitely don't notice my pain as much when I'm with him. I am tired and it's a little exhausting being so engaged in training him and attaching to him, but the joy we're feeling FAR outweighs the work we're putting in to the relationship :)
I'll stop writing now because I really should pay attention to this conference I'm at and because pictures are just so much better, right?! Enjoy our first few weeks with Remus!!
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| He's not a huge licker, which is great because if we're being honest, I think it's gross, but this one was a very little and sweet kiss :) |
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| He loves sleeping in his crate at the foot of our bed, and I love his calm morning personality. |
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| Can't help but squeeze him! |
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| I'm fooling myself if I think I can focus with him on my lap...even with this many toys to distract him. |
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| I love his little baseball! |
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| One of the first days we had him I literally sat in the garage for 15 minutes and took pictures of him sleeping in the car because I didn't want to wake him up |
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| We go for walks and he's getting so good at walking on a loose leash! |
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| I've been grateful for getting out by the beautiful river behind our neighborhood with him so much. |
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| Relaxed in the car! |
Basically, we love him...a lot, and we feel blessed to have him in our family <3
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