I just emailed the breeder last night for an update about the pregnancy and turns out that everything is going swimmingly! The puppies are expected to be born around April 1! Which is, as you know 12 days away! Less than two weeks! I'm not sure how many puppies she's pregnant with, nor how many are males and females, but it's so very close! Just around the corner!
I can't believe it! We're going to be new mommies very soon, everyone! I'm so very excited. In other news, our redecorating and puppy prepping the house is going rather well.
Yesterday, my Duckie with a help from her dad moved out and donated a large hutch (that was in our room) as well as one of our couches (that was in our living room). We mounted the tv in our room up, and set up the puppy crate!
We're still working on rangling those pesky cords in. We'll end up moving the crate forward away from under the tv. But for now, that's where it will stay. As for our living room, everything opened up much more which is really nice.
I feel like I keep saying this but we are in the final stretches of perfecting everything. This week has been quite a whirlwind of events, and I've been hired as an after school library assistant at a high school as well as a cataloger at a historical society. I'm continuing work at my retail job for now, and am hoping to get a call back from another Library Assistant position. I'm going to be a very busy girl, but I want to make sure that we have that much more financial cushion should anything happen.
Big news for me and for my girlfriend as well! She's going to her orientation today for her beauty school! She got a call last minute yesterday to see If she was still interested in starting this month - if not, she would have had to wait until May! So this is really great news! I am so proud of her and so excited that she gets to do something she loves. She says that she's very nervous because of how much she's invested into this school, but I hope she makes a lot of new friends and really enjoys herself!
So I'm not sure if you remember, one of the last posts in July was what resulted in a game changer and stopped us from redecorating our house: The fact that it would cost A LOT of money to redo our backyard. And on top of that, turf was out of the question. So what ever are we going to do about our puppy going potty?
Well, thank goodness for the patio we have upstairs, because we went ahead and bought her a Porch Potty!
I read different articles about potty training your puppy and there seemed to be a problem with using potty pads indoors as it'll teach the dog to go inside. And we really wanted to eliminate that. We did get her some potty pads for the inside of her crate JUST in case. But we mainly wanted to focus on her going outside. So this was a perfect opportunity - since our backyard is, basically, not going to work out - we found something that was the next best thing.
So we will be on puppy potty duty almost every hour for the first couple of weeks and then we will work to ween her will train her to give us some kind of a queue. Needless to say, I am quite excited to start setting this up as well as her crate.
I'm sure, as you guys all saw in the previous posts, we've set up some of the gates up so our cat will get used to having to use them. We're trying to make this process as painless for her as possible. We've set up very strict rules - Dogs aren't allowed on the bed or the couch. The guest room (soon to be our closet) is HER room and she has a tower in every single major room of our house. We're making sure that she doesn't feel like she's getting ALL of her territories confiscated. She has places to escape to.
We're easing her into the process and we're trying very hard to set thing up prior to the puppy coming so that she will get used to the weird new things.
I know, I know - this blog is rather dull and only someone like myself would get excited about the set up part, but like I said, we're in the final stretch - we've got a couple more months and the puppy will be ours!
Sorry for the lack of updates. It's been quite a week. We've had a lot going on. In the turmoil of several different dramas taking place, I had forgotten until later on in the week, that it was my birthday weekend.
Now it being my birthday, and in the recent puppy craze I've developed that's replaced my nesting complex, I've spent all of the free time I've had last week watching surprise puppy videos. It all began with this heart wrenching video of a boyfriend surprising his significant other with a puppy after her recent loss of another dear dog.
And it all spiraled down from there. I've learned that I don't really favour the children getting surprised with puppies, but I'm much more drawn older people getting surprised with puppies. Because it really is tear jerkingly adorable.
I am particularly thrilled to have found this one and this one. If you have extra time, I would definitely suggest you watch those. So with these videos really just encouraging my puppy craze, I've put a huge amount of pressure on my duck to really rise above and beyond.
On Thursday was when it all started. I was supposed to go into archiving, however, something came up with my supervisor, and I had the day off to myself. My girlfriend stated that she needed to go get some stuff done for financial aid. She was gone for about five hours, but knitted a great story about how she had to wait because there was only one counselor and they made her wait while the people took their lunch. It was quite convincing. She even told this story convincingly to her mom at my birthday dinner the next night.
Despite it all, there was something in the back of my mind really just tugging saying "no. There is no way that she's gone for that long. And it's your birthday. She's planning something...." then of course, my imagination took it from there and I convinced myself that "OH MY GOD. SHE IS GOING TO COME HOME AND SURPRISE ME WITH A PUPPY"
She came home, and that wasn't the case. However, we did start talking about different puppies. She showed me an adorable Dalmatian puppy on a site and sent me to a website that sold different collars and dog beds and toys.... really, she was hyping me up that much more. By this point, I had fully convinced myself that there was a puppy in the near future. I could feel it in my bones. In my mind, I was completely in a Kristen Bell with a Sloth kind of state.
Saturday morning, crack of dawn rolls around and I see that my girlfriend is gone. I text her and she tells me, again a very convincing story of how her brother needed to be taken to the hospital because he was feeling extremely ill, and couldn't drive himself. She's gone for quite some time, but knowing how long emergency rooms can take, I don't really question it. She returns claims that her brother mocked how dirty our car was and really wanted to clean it out. So I lock Moose and myself in my room so that the duck can start cleaning out the car.
This was the moment, where I expected the Duck to come into the room with a puppy in a box. Nope not at all. Nothing. Nada. I'm slightly crest fallen and I kind of bug Duckie about it: what she got me for my birthday and our plans. We decide then and there that we're not really going to do presents and we're just going to stay home and take it easy. I was okay with that. It's always really nice to get some rest.
Come my birthday, which was Sunday, June 9, I wake up quite early. We relax for a bit - then she tells me to get ready. She dresses me and then we take off. She drives me around and around - me thinking to throw off the scent of where we're going. She tells me that I have too high of an expectation of her to get me a puppy for my birthday. Even though I'm slightly crest fallen, I try to make the most of what's to come. We drive around some more, Duckie is trying to stall - and then we drive into a local barbeque takeout restaurant. Where I see my friends waiting for me! They had all planned this behind my back and they all took me to Bodega, where we ate, drank and were merry.
But the surprise is yet to come. I began opening presents. Everyone was absolutely generous. My friend Sarah got me a Pier 1 gift card to satiate my overwhelming nesting complex. AND it even came in a nest of a wrapping!
My other friend Rachel got me a Pearl Necklace. Of course we're both pearl babies. And pearls are my favourite. It's absolutely lovely.
My girlfriend's gift was last. I opened the small bag, in it sat a $25 gift card to Outback, which she was surprised to find that I was thrilled about, and several notes. One of them was a birthday card wishing me happy birthday. Another was a note that read....
And then, she whipped out two large bags....
That included puppy toys, bed, collar and a puppy starter kit. That's right, guys. As the letter states, I'm officially in line to pick a puppy to call my own come Spring! I'm going to be a mommy! It's still taking a bit for everything to sink in, but I am thrilled to announce this happy news. My Duck really went above and beyond with this, and I am so so very very blessed to have this opportunity. I am so appreciative, excited and just....I don't know what to even say!
Hi, guys. As mentioned before, in order to ready myself for a new puppy in our life, I've started researching about different breeds to see which dog would be the best companion for me. I've taken several different match maker tests and my favourite of all was the Pet Centric by Purina that my dear friend introduced me to during the middle of setting up for her Thesis Project. Not only are they incredibly hilarious because of the fact that the dogs talk, but also is a great first step in finding about what breed really suits you.
Choosing a breed was difficult for me, because there are so many dogs that I would love to have. And before I started my research I had a predisposition towards the dalmatian breed. However, the more research I did about the dogs, and testimonials from different owners I've gathered, I've come to the conclusion that they're absolutely perfect for me. The Pet Centric Dog Breed Selector is what ultimately began my whirlwind of research. I'm a professional at this, as I work at my school archives and have for the past year done research on different requests that we receive from all different sources.
From the Dog Breed Selector, I went to different websites and breeder sites to learn more about the dog - This included history of the breed, temperament, health issues, diet, and ideal training techniques. It's great to start off understanding the history of the dog breed. Dalmatians at the earliest time in history were used as war and guard dogs. They were also known to be hunting dogs, and later were used as carriage dogs - they ran alongside, in front of or under horse drawn carriages to encourage the horses to run faster and to clear the path of traffic. From there, I went to understand their temperament. Their history shows that they are high stamina dogs - they need a lot of exercise and can't just sit around for hours on end. However, at the same time, they love being with the family and being adorable snuggle-muffins. Being able to balance both of those traits out is ideal. Next were the health issues: Dalmatians, like any other dogs are prone to health problems and it is important to research more about these problems and alter the lifestyle as well as diet to best benefit the dog.
The most exciting bit is being able to teach your dog tricks. Now, I am a firm believer in the potential of dogs. I think that a lot of people are predisposed to different dog breed stereotypes, and don't give certain dogs a time of day because of that - They're quick to judge how difficult a certain dog is going to be to train or to have. The most infamous dog breed are Pitbulls. Some people refuse to give them a chance because they're known to be aggressive, but some of the sweetest dogs I've ever met were Pitbulls. I don't ever blame a dog for their behavior - you can't generalize a dog the same way you can't generalize people. Every dog is different and with the right mindset, and training techniques, I feel that any dog has the potential to be well behaved, intelligent companions. All dogs need to continue their training after the basics of sit, down, and stay. They become brain games and are fun for the dog and useful for the owners. Ideally, I want my dog to be perfectly trained and just all around fun to play with. Kind of like this beautiful Dalmatian, Dino.
Or Moose (yes, it's perfect because he has the same name as my cat) Link because the video won't embed So in order to succeed that, I went ahead and began researching training techniques. I bought a fantastic book called Brain Games For Dogs at Barnes and Noble to learn the different games dogs may want to play.
Now, I know I'm getting extremely ahead of myself here and am projecting an idealized concept of getting my puppy and having her trained at a drop of a hat. Though, underneath that, I do know that there's a lot of responsibilities involved and hard work. There will be a lot of ups and downs, like anything else in life. I'd like to think that I'm being a responsible owner in doing research and not getting a dog on a whim. And of course the research doesn't end here - There's so much more to do: puppy classes, pet insurance, and most importantly finding my puppy. But I'd like to think I'm getting a good start here considering we're waiting another year for her to come into our life. Because out of all of this, more than anything I want to be a great owner to my dog and not just her be a great dog for me.
Hi, I'm Lily. A 23 year old college graduate with an intensified nesting complex and a chronic internet addiction. Happy mother of a 9 year old neurotic cat and partner of the most amazing person in the universe. I'm trying to change my life around for the better and accommodate to welcome a new puppy into our lives.
