I am just going to continue this blog as if I know everyone who comes to read this thing as if I've known them for years, as if you've known me for years. I think it is only fair and get to know me that way.
So as you all may know my fiance and myself currently have a dog together. His name is Jax and he is a hyperactive mixed breed (jack russel, min pin) dog. I love him to death. I have and always have been a great lover of animals. Ok, lets just skip to the good part here. Me and my fiance, have decided to adopt a new puppy into the family! There is so much about how and why we looked into getting a second dog, I feel like I have left out many details here, but I will do my best to share what I can. We have long wanted a companion for our Jaxson and what made us decide on now was merely timing. We went to check out our local animal shelters and animal rescue groups only to find the usual pickings of dogs that we had found before. I did find a puppy austrailian shepherd that was adorable, but beings she was a puppy, I didn't think myself to be too fond an austrailian shepherd "mix" when she did grow up. Specifically me and DJ (my fiance) were more looking for a dog that would stay small and would be female. Female as I have read that introducing a second dog of a different gender of your first dog at home is usually the most compatible. Ok so back to the shelter, they wanted $250 for the puppy and the volunteers who worked at this shelter didn't really know much about the puppies family history or any soft of what she really would be like when she grew up. I did love that puppy face, but me and DJ decided against adopting her at the time.
So a couple weeks after our shelter escapade we went to a local pet store. Ok, not to adopt a puppy, but just to look. This pet store often has a variety of pure-bred as well as mixed-breed dogs, but being a pet store they always want outrageous prices, so I mainly scam DJ into taking me there so as to get a better idea of what cuteness in a puppy I would be looking for. Well on this particular incident I just fell in love with the cute adorable cocker spaniel- king charles spaniel mix puppy. He was spotted and brindle color. I have always thought cocker and king charles spaniels were adorable and I was falling in love. We didn't take home the puppy right then and there. The pet store wanted $500 and I didn't want to make a rash decision. #1 being that this puppy was a male and we had really discussed a female would be best for us. It took me about a week of thinking on it and researching all over the net to finally decide we could have a male with a male and that this was the dog for us. I mean when again would I be able to find such a wonderful mix. The "cockalier" as I had found this type of dog to be coined on the internet. In all the dog searching and hunting I have done I have never found a dog of this breed driving distance to where we live. I also looked at websites such as puppyfind.com but found a lot of those dogs were way too far away (shipping just sounded cruel to me) and also found a lot of scams on this website where they said they had these dogs, but then if you go and look at other dogs a seller on puppyfind.com has they would have 10+ different breeds. This site was just too hit or miss for me so I decided the only way we would ever acquire a dog was through local shelters, the paper, or petfinder.com which is a great website that lists pets at shelters nearest to you (or not so nearest to you).
I feel I'm getting a little side tracked here, so back to me finally deciding I wanted the cockalier we had seen at the pet store. We decided to make a trip and when we did get there, we came to find he had been adopted. I was devastated; I know DJ was too. I had put all this idea of "what-if" into my head, I had made everything about this dog seem like this dog was the one for us. I really didn't want to do anything but sit and mope when we found out the dog had been adopted. I know sitting and doing nothing just makes these things seem worse, so I decided to get back on my "broom" and see well what else is available. What else could I possibly love into my mind as much as I had "loved" and really just wanted this puppy? I searched through everything local on the net I could think of: petfinder.com, the local online newspaper, and this ebay site I found that lists local listings of pets as well: ebayclassifieds.com
I really didn't find much of anything except for a listing in our local paper for miniature schnauzers. At the time, I honestly didn't know exactly what a miniature schnauzer looked like. In reading the ad to my fiance, he called the number, and within a few minutes of getting directions we were on our way to check out the babies! Ok, so out the door, I asked DJ, " Are we being too irrational?" I just got my heart broke over not finding the cockalier I so thought I needed, to now being excited about some schnauzer puppies I didn't even know if I would like or not. DJ has worked as a pet groomer in the past, so he had an idea of the dog and knew of their temperament, training ease and would not have said yes to them had he not thought of them as a good choice for us. I made this trip "ok" in my mind, as this was really a sign that the cockalier wasn't there for us because we didn't want a male initially and this would give us the opportunity to possibly pick out a female. I also wasn't 100% happy with myself for possibly purchasing an animal from a local pet store. Now I am not saying the pet store is puppy mill funded, but not knowing where the pup cam from or any possible questions about how best to care and maintain the pup to only come from the pet store did not seem satisfactory especially for paying $500. The schnauzers we were going to visit we would be able to see the mother and at $350 we would not be supporting the "pet store" but a breeder who truly knows what they are doing.
So we went and found the family of mama schnauzer, and her baby pups. I'm not sure exactly how many pups she did have. I'd say 7 from my current memory. We told her we were interested in a female to which she showed us the "runt" of the family who was black and white "parti" colored as they call her. And another female which was all white in color. She gave me the runt to hold and DJ the all white to hold. Now these puppies were so tiny. They were only 4 weeks at this point of seeing them, and let me just say I fell in love with them. I was fond of the petite size of the one I was holding, but was more intrigued by the solid white coloring of the pup DJ had at hand. In my mind I actually thought these dogs were Scottish terriers, and had never seen such an animal before. I thought she was lovely and I looked into DJ eyes and said, I really do want this one. Ok, so DJs a sucker for animals and puppies too. It didn't take much convincing that we had finally found our puppy!
That was a week ago from today. We put our deposit on her as we can only have her when she is 8 weeks old. I can hardly wait with the anticipation as I think of bringing her home. She has consumed a good majority of my happy free thoughts. On the way home from looking at the adorable pups me and DJ threw out possible names for her. I don't remember all that we went through at that time, but we currently have a list of potential names which include: Lotus, Chloe, and Lola. I am hoping that we will make time to visit her again, possibly so I can give her a full on name, but 3 more weeks to go I can barely stand the anticipation of waiting!
