Meet Sadie: OUR NEW DOG!

 

HOW COULD YOU NOT LOVE THAT FACE????

Well, clearly-- Matt and I couldn't. We saw her and fell in love and now-- she's (alomst) ours!

 

Meet Sadie, our soon-to-be new dog! She’s a 1 ½ years old beagle/bulldog mix we got through a local rescue shelter. She's about 30-35 pounds, fully grown (they think/we hope!). She was rescued from a kill shelter in KY a few months ago. Spent about 2 months at a kennel that the shelter we’re working with uses to house dogs until they can get a foster house or until they've been adopted. She’s been at a foster for about 2 weeks and been doing great! They think she’s crate and potty trained (only had 1 accident in the 2 weeks!)! She’s spayed, up to date on shots, microchipped, and heartworm negative.

 

We “met” Sadie last week at an adoption event and she seemed so sweet! We watched her for about 20 minutes and she never barked or had any aggression or anything. Seemed very docile and gentle. She's definitely strong, though! The Hubs and I “walked” her around the store that had the event and she’s STRONG! When she wanted to check something out, she wanted to check it out and that was all there was to it! Definitely nothing we couldn’t handle or anything, but she is a strong girl! She’s kinda a couch-potato, indoor type dog. She'll need daily short walks, but that’s pretty much it on the exercise front. Likely not going to be my companion for long runs, but she'll make great company for long walks and maybe a short run... we'll see. Sadie is a short haired dog, so she won’t need haircuts or professional grooming, but we will need us to give her weekly baths and brush her every other day or so.

Her foster mom describes her as a “very sweet, loving, and friendly dog ”and says that she is a “great girl!” The foster house has 2 young kids and she does great with them too!

 

We're super excited!! We even bought a crate online and did other shopping to prepare for her arrival. Turns out, dogs need a lot of stuff! Crates and blankets and beds and food and a leash and a collar and bowls and shampoo and toys... man o' man! It was a tad overwhelming to start shopping for a dog when I have NO experience knowing what to get and what to pass on, but I think we're off to a good start.

We still have to fill out the official paperwork, but we're pretty much all set and scheduled to pick her up a couple days after Christmas!

Now, you know it couldn't be that easy, right? Now is the enter, Meagan FREAK OUT  moment. Of course. What if we’re bad dog-parents? What if we’re not ready? What if we just don’t have the time (HOW would we not have the time? We don't have kids, all we have is our jobs? What else do we do with all our time? I HAVE NO IDEA!)? Right now, one of us pretty much gets home right around 5:15pm every day of the working week and we’re always home Sunday nights. So, I’m not worried about those. I'm also not really worried about training the dog or that sort of thing. We're good with routine and have done tons of research and such (ex: I emailed the Hubs 6 articles yesterday about crate training, potty training, discipline, how to bring a new dog home, etc. We think she's already crate and potty trained, but it couldn't hurt to read about it, right?!?). We can handle daily walks and that sorta thing.

I’m worried about weekends. What about when we go out of town? We don't really know anyone in our city (at least not well enough to ask them to dog-sit) and we definitely don’t have neighbors we could ask to watch her (unless we want them feeding her beer straight from a keg tap-- hello, college kids). So we’d have to what… kennel her each time? PRICEY! Would we just not go out of town as much? After talking it out with the Hubs (and after several g-chat, email, and phone convo's with friends) we decided we're just going to have to make it work. Bring her with us. Kennel her for long trips. Not travel as much. It's do-able. It'll be a change, for sure. But, it's do-able.

I’m of course worried that maybe we’re not ready to be responsible for another living thing… but, are you ever READY? Or is this one of those things you just kinda jump into a little and you can’t really be READY before you jump? There's tons of less responsible couples that get and manage to care of dogs all the time. How could they handle it, if we couldn’t? But, what if we can’t??

From what I hear, these freak outs are totally NORMAL. It's normal to be panicked and worry that you're not ready. It's also normal and to be expected to never quite be fully ready or prepared. That you gotta kinda leap before you look, a bit (something that is totally and completely out of my comfort zone).

We're going to be responsible for another living thing. That's huge. Our lives are going to change. We want a dog… we really, really do. They’re so cute and lovable and I think they make great companions and they're great for kids (which we hope to also have... someday).  I think the Hubs and I are loving and responsible and such, so I think we'd be good pet parents. Wouldn't we? I think we could handle this. I think we're READY for this.

So, we're leaping! Come the New Year, we'll officially be puppy parents! We think we're off to a good start on the essentials we'll need for a dog, but this week we're on the hunt for other must-have dog materials.... leash, collar, food bowls, toys, treats, etc.

Dog owners out there-- what do we NEED? Any tips? Suggestions?