WE GOT A DOG, WE GOT A DOG, PRAISE THE LORD, WE GOT A DOG.
After years of pinning at every little pooch we see dolled up in designer sweaters with matching booties being pranced around the city, Zach and I are finally proud DOG OWNERS!
Oh what an adventure it has been!
The process started a few months ago when I (in a moment of extreme wanting) googled "dog adoption" and came across adoptapet.com. The website is kind of like a facebook for pets that need adoption, including a picture and short description. I looked through profiles for weeks, even sending initial emails on some, but not following through. Until the week after my birthday, when we came across a very special little pup. The description was for a small beagle-chihuahua mix 12 week old puppy currently in foster care in Tennessee. He already had his shots, but wasn't big enough to be fixed yet and had the cutest little face! Zach and I acted fast! We filled out an online application and a few days later had a phone interview with someone from the company and with the little pup's foster mom. After a few questions and a quick paypal transaction we were the proud owners of a little dog! The next issue was getting him to us.
The adoption agency uses a pet delivery service (how funnny is that!) that would bring us our little puppy from Tennessee to a town about an hour outside of the city on the last friday of April. But since they were driving the entire way and making other stops, he wouldn't be getting in until about 1 or 2 AM Friday night. What a conundrum! We decided to rent a car for the night, go out to dinner (and drive 2 hours to the nearest walmart ) before driving up to the pup deliver location.
Around 11:30 pm we received a call saying that the van o' pups was about 2 hours away from the delivery point, so we headed out! We were to meet the van in EAST parking lot of Exit 14 off some highway a little over an hour north of the city. We drove up there, we got off of the exit saw the NORTH parking lot, the WEST parking lot and the SOUTH parking lot- but the EAST parking lot was no where to be found! Zach and I drove around for a little thinking that we were crazy in our attempts to find the missing lot- but to no avail. We finally chose one of the other lots to wait in. We waited and waited inspecting every car that drove past. Finally, at about 1:30 AM on April 30th 2011, a large, white van drove into the parking lot and pulled up next to us. We got out of the car and walked over. A large woman asked us what dog was ours while a scruffy man went in to the back of the truck then opened the side door and produced a small dog. The woman handed us a manilla envelope with some papers in it and told us to have a good night. We walked away, pup in hand, and got into our car as the big white van disappeared into the night. Although this interaction was the closest thing that Zach or I had ever experienced to a late night drug buy, we left he parking lot with a little puppy all of own! This is the first picture we have of him. He looks so small and scared with his ears back!
The past two weeks have been full of many adorable moments, a lot a little accidents, attempting to get him to walk on a leash, a few visits the the vet, a first visit to a dog park, a lot of snuggles, a little barking, one shower (murphy did not like that) and a lot of fun. One of our first discoveries was that he is definitely not part chihuahua. We, and the vet, think that he is some sort of beagle -lab mix. Right now he is 17 weeks old and weighs about 18 lbs. Originally we thought he was going to be about 20-25 lbs fully grown but it's actually going to be closer to 50 lbs! So no little annoying yappy citty dog for us, we have ourselves a full sized pup! Although this limits up with regards to travel (can't have a 50lb dog on the subway or train!) we are still so excited to have him!
Zach has been working very hard to train the little guy, he's pretty good with sit already! And we start puppy classes tomorrow! He is still a little shy when we are at the park, but he is much more comfortable with us and is showing us his personality! Here are some wonderful pictures of our little pup:
Auntie Ann's make making that signature pretzel shape look far more easy than it is! These were not low calorie- low fat - low carb or low anything- just a wonderful party snack. I most certainly plan to make these again! 
