{"id":1464,"date":"2011-03-06T18:00:02","date_gmt":"2011-03-07T00:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dmentd.com\/?p=1464"},"modified":"2011-03-06T16:12:49","modified_gmt":"2011-03-06T22:12:49","slug":"esme-the-pup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/esme-the-pup","title":{"rendered":"Esme The Pup."},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, we sure didn’t waste much time, did we?\u00a0 *grins*<\/strong> We said we would start visiting the shelters once we got back from England (as in starting after a week or so) to see if we could find a pup to adopt, but first we needed to start gathering a few things to be prepared — general stuff like leashes, toys, bedding, etc., with the stuff that is specific to the size of the pup (both as a pup, and as it grows) to come once we adopted.<\/span><\/p>\n

Saturday started with a nice long lay-in after traveling all day Friday (between the drive to Heathrow Airport, the flight, and the drive back into Austin from Houston, we were on the move for about 21 hours), and then a good breakfast.\u00a0 We had planned a lazy day in, but we realized we needed some essentials around the house, so we decided to stop at the grocery store… but first, what harm in heading to the pet shop to start gathering the puppy basics?<\/p>\n

Stopped in, lazily wandered up and down the isles and picked out a few generic items.\u00a0 Gathered a few brochures on the obedience classes, played nice for a few minutes with the Shetland pony… I mean Great Dane that someone brought in with them for obedience class, and checked out.\u00a0 Walked out of the store, and one of the local shelters had set up shop outside with a host of dogs in gated pens… we see them all the time outside the big pet stores, typically fund raising, and if possible, finding homes for some of their pups.\u00a0 They were one of the rescue shelters that often takes dogs from the one “kill shelter” in town to keep them 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 They were energetic, but not hyperactive, playful, and had a good spark of intelligence in their eyes.\u00a0 We asked the keeper how old they were, and she told us they were 2 months.<\/p>\n

I turned to look at Sweets, and knew<\/em> that she fell in love the instant I did.\u00a0 I straightened up and asked her simply “which one?”<\/em>, and she smiled and told me “the girl”<\/em>.\u00a0 I nodded, because she was the one I had picked out too.\u00a0 We spoke with the keeper to get more details.\u00a0 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)<\/span>.\u00a0 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 they’d rather not keep them.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 We paid the nicely inexpensive fee, and we had ourselves a new pup.\u00a0 *grins*<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

We put her in a shopping cart, and promptly went back into the store to get the rest of the necessities.\u00a0 She was well behaved, and was showered with attention from everyone we passed.\u00a0 We brought her home, and were bonding with her all night.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 She’s starting to get used to the leash… a bit, anyway.\u00a0 Someone has taught her to sit, as she does it frequently in response to treat offers or going outside.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 She’s a relatively quiet pup too.<\/p>\n

She’ll grow to be a little bigger than we had originally decided we wanted our full-grown dog to be, but not much more… we estimate she’ll be in the 30-40 lb range.\u00a0 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).\u00a0 She’s absolutely adorable, and spent a fair bit of time snuggled against me on the floor as we watched a bit of TV.<\/p>\n

Today we cleaned up the yard and ensured it was as pup friendly as it can be so we can let her out — supervised of course — with a bit of freedom from the leash.\u00a0 We’ve started positive reinforcement training already, and we’ll soon be shortly attending some new-pup obedience classes.\u00a0 We started researching behavioral training months ago, in addition to learning what to expect, and what is expected of us.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have been told by a source (that I shall leave unnamed) that she is cute, as all puppies and babies are cute, but that she is not beautiful, and that she will grow to be an ugly massive hound.\u00a0 I ask you, how can that be said of this bundle of fur.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, we sure didn’t waste much time, did we?\u00a0 *grins* We said we would start visiting the shelters once we got back from England (as in starting after a week or so) to see if we could find a pup to adopt, but first we needed to start gathering a few things to be prepared […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,9,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-domestica","category-family","category-pictures"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1464"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1469,"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464\/revisions\/1469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}