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When we went on our road trip to Minneapolis last month, we took the puppies. It was our first road trip with them and, while it was fun, it was a lot like traveling with exceedingly hairy, foreign language babbling toddlers- it’s something you can push through, but not something you’d really enjoy. So when it came time to go see our first NFL football game of the year (we’re splitting season tickets to the Vikings) Mister and I agreed that we would give boarding the puppies a go.
“You don’t understand what it’s like! I miss them!!!”, I would wail at Mister while he agreed. No, he didn’t know what it was like. One of the worst things about The Prairie City I’m from is that there are no animals allowed in apartments, and while you can sneak a hamster (his name was Jack) or a cat past your landlord, you can’t very well sneak in a dog. So, like a chorus inevitably rounding the corner after a verse, whenever I would get upset in the first three years of our relationship it would eventually bubble up: I missed living with dogs, and it was kind of breaking my heart.
{new camera lens…}
{+ puppies…}
{= even more time spent gaaaaaazing into his dreamy eyes.}
Ash & Mal are pleased to make your acquaintance, and will make sure their paws are dirty so the next time you visit you’ll have something to remember them by.
{Looking for more? I’m over at Mandy’s place today writing for her Lasting Impressions series about friendship – check it out!}
It’s been a busy week – I had a number of crushing deadlines to attend to, home renovations to plan, and whims to pursue, which would have been fine, had there not been a major puppy scare.
I went to take Ash on his late night walk, and found that he was looking…strange. His nose was wrenched to the side, he was salivating a lot, his bottom jaw was crooked and slack – about an inch out of where it would usually sit and was making a terrible grinding noise while he gnashed his jaws.
I didn’t want dogs because I wanted children. Children aren’t as hairy and my dogs will never learn English.
Dogs don’t date, and they don’t mean I need to save for their university tuition. My dogs will never hang out in Osborne Village with torn jackets, rolling with a rough crowd pretending to be a homeless kid and then steal home at all hours of the night to raid my fridge.
My dogs will come upstairs to visit me when I’m reading blogs. They will fight to sit on my lap, and then watch intently as the computer screen changes while I type. My dogs read your blog. My children probably won’t.
Thanks for all of the well wishes last week about my mom’s hobbled cat Oliver and my puppies being neutered. They’re all doing very well, but it was a sad night without the boys. So much of everything now is geared around the puppies that having them gone was startling.
I didn’t have to bus home at the lunch hour with the windchill licking at my cheeks, let the pups out, walk them, and then rush back to the stop hoping that the bus wouldn’t be early and leave me stranded downtown for the better part of an hour. I didn’t have to sleepily hop over baby gates, or ignore being pounced on while I made my morning coffee. After dinner, I didn’t have a Mal to curl up with on the couch. I wasn’t so much as nipped at for 12 hours!
Well, I’m afraid that if any of you were holding out hopes that you could cross breed your dachshunds to our Schipperkes – you dreams are being dashed against the rocks as we speak. Today is D-Day for the puppies. They’re officially six months old, have all their teeth and so they’re off to the vet!
We dropped them off this morning and they have to stay overnight, which makes me sad, but it’s giving Mister and I a night off of Puppy Parenthood to go see the new James Bond in the middle of the week, and I’m pretty sure that we’ll get beauty pageant style sashes that read RESPONSIBLE DOG OWNERS! when we go to pick them up, so there’s that to look forward to.
I guess the best way to introduce this is to say that above and beyond anything else, I’m a stray dog magnet. When dogs on long leashes round the corner I perk up and start walking faster – “HE HAS AN OWNER!” Mister will shout, laughing. And I have to slow myself down and laugh at myself.
Somehow we have already had the puppies for nearly a month, and August 12th was the one month anniversary of our move into our first house. And we’re nearly one month out of the wedding. This summer has evaporated from under me faster that I thought it could, even with everything that’s going on.
This week the puppies have crashed through a lot of benchmarks – Mal attended his first socialization class on Sunday and is attending his second this weekend, the boys learned how to go up and down our big flight of stairs, they visited the big dogs at my mom’s house for the third time, and the hard edges of Ash’s personality has continued to mellow under our calm (and dominant) regime…and with the help of his brother for company
I'm Kyla- a twenty something web designer & full time creative business owner, friendly introvert, thrifting addict & vegetarian foodie. I live in a tiny house with my husband Jesse and very small (very bad!) dogs, and am passionate about handmade, living simply, organization and making my time stretch so I can fill it with all the projects I have whirling around my mind.
This is my personal blog where I share stories from my life, lessons I'm learning through living with GAD, being self employed, results from my kitchen, and inspiration that makes me swoon.
