We came back from England on Friday, arrived home about 6pm (more on the trip when I’ve sorted through the thousand photographs!) and slept lots. We planned a lazy day for Saturday but after making breakfast and realising we were out of milk we decided a trip to grab a few essentials was needed.

We’ve been talking and planning on getting a pup since before Christmas, we were putting it off until after the trip (for obvious reasons) and so we decided while we were out to stop by the pet store to start collecting essentials.. all the bits and pieces that aren’t dog specific. This ended up being the first stop on our list of errands.

As we were coming out one of the local shelters had set up outside. You see them around town, outside supermarkets and pet stores, typically fund raising, and if possible, finding homes for some of their pups.  They are one of the rescue shelters that often takes dogs from the one “kill shelter” in town to keep dogs from being put down just because they weren’t adopted in a timely fashion. We, being in a particularly doggy mood, decided to stop and say hello to some of the dogs.

It seemed the usual compliment of slightly older dogs, until we got down to the end of the line — there, playing together, were two young pups.  They had to be from the same litter, as they had the same brindle coat (brown with black tiger-like stripes), and similar features — they seemed to be a mix of catahoula, terrier, and a pinch of some breed of hound.  One, the male, had a black nose with a white bib and feet, the other, the female had a white nose with a white bib and feet.  The second we reached in to pet them, they took note and started licking our hands, happily sitting calmly to let us scratch their ears and chins.  They were energetic, but not hyperactive, playful, and had a good spark of intelligence in their eyes.  We asked the keeper how old they were, and she told us they were about 2 months.

DmentD and I looked at each other and knew that we had both fallen for the same one, the girl. We spoke with the keeper to get more details.  The pups were spayed/neutered already, were as up-to-date on their shots as they can be at this age, had been de-wormed, and were perfectly healthy — we have paperwork on every veterinary procedure performed (shots and all).  They would come with a 30-day “insurance” plan, and the shelter would always be available to take any of their adopted dogs back should adopters ever decide we’d rather not keep them.  We filled out the paperwork, went over a zillion details on what vet procedures were needed (booster shots, and once she’s of age, rabies/distemper/parvo shots, etc), heartworm, training etc.  We paid the nicely inexpensive fee, and we had ourselves a new pup.  *grins*

We put her in a shopping cart, and promptly went back into the store to get the rest of the necessities.  She was well behaved, and was showered with attention from everyone we passed.  We brought her home, and  bonded with her all night.  She’s very mellow with bursts of puppy enthusiasm, and will roll over to have her belly pet if you so much as look at her.  She’s starting to get used to the leash… a bit, anyway.  Someone has taught her to sit, as she does it frequently in response to treat offers or going outside.  She’s got no problems being handled or touched — I’ve played with her feet, ears, mouth, tail and she hasn’t so much as twitched.  She’s a relatively quiet pup too.

Today she sat, mostly quietly, in the yard while we cleaned it up and made it pup-proof.

She’ll grow to be a little bigger than we had originally decided we wanted a full-grown dog to be, but not much more… we estimate she’ll be in the 40-50 lb range, maybe a little smaller.  Her shelter name was “Rosie”, but we think she’s going to be “Esme” (after Esmeralda “Esme” Weatherwax, one of the witches in the Discworld series of books).  She’s absolutely adorable..

We’ll be off to the vets this week and plan on starting puppy classes as soon as possible, as much to help us as her! Stay tuned for more photos!