“Puppy Love – Part 2”
By
Dr. Steve Velling
By
Dr. Steve Velling
Well, we took the plunge.
My wife, daughter and I adopted a puppy, and I wanted to share my
experience with all of you. First, you
may recall at the end of my last article that I mentioned that we would be
looking to add another dog to our house to go along with our old Corgi,
Copper. My daughter wanted a Great Dane,
which my wife was a rather worried about – big dog, big poop, lots of drool and
potentially hard to walk. My condition
was that we try our best to adopt a dog from a shelter, so of course my
daughter took to the internet looking for Great Danes to rescue. We actually did see a few online at a nearby
shelter, so we planned a day to go out and visit.
My daughter was extremely excited, already planning on where
the dog would sleep, what she would name it, and what they would do
together. I had to temper her excitement
by reminding her that a lot goes into adopting a dog, and you can’t just look
at a picture and expect to get that dog or expect that dog to be a good fit. We drove out to the shelter, located on 40
acres south of Leesburg, a beautiful spot.
We walked around the grounds, saying hello to all the dogs while I was
mentally keeping track of which ones seemed to have the gentlest
disposition. We did in fact see a gray
and white female Great Dane that seemed calm enough in her cage, but when she
was brought out to meet Copper, she nearly took his head off. No Great Dane for us on this visit. My daughter was quite upset, but she got over
it fairly quickly as we continued to look online and saw a litter of 4 month
old puppies available to look at with the same shelter, but at a foster mom’s
house.
We went and saw three of the puppies – Doberman mixes with
dark faces, long gangly legs and brindle coloring (brown and black
stripes). They were all adorable, but
there was one that literally went over and sat on my daughter’s lap - Eli. I had to check him out (I brought my
stethoscope), and then we had a family vote on the ride home. The consensus was that Eli was the best
choice (as he made it so clear to us!), but we did decide to change his name to
Boone.
I have to say that I now have a re-appreciation for people
that have a puppy in their house. The
puppy-proofing, constant trips outside, occasional accidents or ripped up toys,
and grumpiness by Copper towards Boone are greatly off-set by having such a
lovable, smart, cute dog in the house.
He brings a lot of joy to our house, and it all started with taking our
time and making the right choice.
Till next time,
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