We got Lenny...

We got an early surprise. A day earlier than expected the rescue organization called and asked if we could take our puppy home. COULD WE? Of course we could. So, dear readers, we got Leonard. Lenny for short. He's 8 weeks old, sharpei, boxer, bull dog mix, energetic and a wee wee machine! As expected, Arnie - our big male cat - loves him. He thinks he's a great playmate though they are still negotiating the terms of play. Mama Belle - our female cat who runs the house - merely tolerates him and has let him know that she is in charge, no matter what. Lenny watches her move through the house respectfully and leaves her alone.

Night one went relatively smoothly, mostly because he was pretty tired out from all the excitement. We are crate training him and though he yelped for a about ten minutes at bedtime he did settle down and sleep for nearly 4 hours. I got up to take him out in the middle of the night and he yipped some more at going back in the crate but settled down again and slept until morning. No accidents in the crate and he appropriately used the pee pee pad when he did have an accident. Day Two and we attempted some daytime crating. Not so successful. He knows I am home so he barks his fool head off. However, he did settled down eventually and nap for a couple of hour in his crate so I call that a win. Gave me a chance to get a nap too since I was up in the middle of the night with him.

Day Three - crate training was a bust. Bark bark bark whining crying...sheesh! Nothing I gave him or did helped him settled in and it seemed it took forever for him to even almost calm down. By midmorning I was at my wit's end. I hadn't had any solid sleep in three days and this was getting to me. My husband came home early to give me a break. I got in a nap. We carried on.

Tomorrow we start again. We have made his crate comfy and inviting and give him treats and reward good behavior but he's dead set against being in there. Tonight we're trying it with a crate cover and tomorrow we're getting some pheromone spray to see if that helps settle him down.

He's a sweet puppy. I couldn't be more in love. And I know that we'll get through this with patience and love. He'll learn. And so will we!

Meet Leonard...

This is Leonard. In two weeks he'll be coming to live at our house. He's a mix breed pup from a rescue. Let me tell you about him...

For over a year now, Alex and I have talked about wanting a dog. We've looked at the local shelters and even went to the horrible PetLand store and played with the puppies there just so we could play with puppies. We really didn't have a particular breed in mind or even that our dog had to be a  puppy. We just wanted a dog! And we knew, deep down, that we would definitely get one from a shelter or rescue.

So, the time came when we were able to finally buy our own home and we realized that this was our time to finally get our dog too. Now, we did have some criteria in looking. Whatever dog we chose had to be friendly, playful, outgoing, have some energy but so much that he bowled either of us over and, above all, he had to get along with our cats. We have two cats and their comfort and acceptance of this dog and he or she of them was the most important factor.

The first dog we considered was a terrier/staffy mix at the local shelter named Mr. Wiggles. This dog was so sweet. Big and energetic and so friendly. He loved us and was well trained. He was a top contender for a long time but, unfortunately for him, we met him just before we could actually move into our house so we weren't able to adopt him. He did get adopted though! Just not by us.

I kept looking and found a rescue online on Facebook called JR's Pups and Stuff. This rescue doesn't have a shelter but rather does everything by foster home. I signed up there and hoped for the best. I also signed up at TinyPaws Rescue and we looked at another local shelter. While we waiting, we moved. Then, finally, JR's called! We had a "home visit" via FaceTime which was more of an interview really. The representative asked us a lot of what we knew about dogs and our home and who we used as a vet etc. That night we were notified that they had accepted us as approved adopters and we were free to check out all the dogs they had available. Oh my gosh, there were so many! Big, little, young, old....they have hundreds of dogs brought from all over the country from high kill shelters and puppy mills. We found four that we liked. Two, Sweetie and Midnight, were a full grown bonded pair and we would have gladly taken them both in. But the foster mother never responded to our inquiry so we moved on. The other two were puppies from a litter brought up from the southern US. The pups were all named after Mammals and the two we wanted to see were called Giraffe and Cow! Ha! Well, it took about 30 seconds to know that Giraffe was the one. He snuggled under my chin and made sweet little grunts and gave me puppy kisses. He rolled over and had Alex rub his little pink belly too. We were in love. We told the foster he was the one! Since he is only 6 and 1/2 weeks old we have to wait to bring him home. He still has to stay with him mama for a while longer. On the way home we decided that a face that serious needed a serious name and he was christened Leonard.

The next two weeks are going to be the slowest two weeks ever, I just know it. I wish he was here right now! I feel like a little girl waiting for Christmas to come. A really great Christmas...where you get a puppy from Santa!