Adopting A New Dog

The smell of bacon filled the air with a hint of pancakes on the griddle. Adopting a new dog was the last thing on my mind that beautiful, quite Sunday morning as I cooked my family's breakfast.

My husband was reading the newspaper, while the boys were building a Lego creation on the family room floor. I heard the ruffle of the newspaper and these words, “Since I was thinking about adopting a new dog today, who wants to go get a puppy?”

“I do! I do!” the boys screamed in unison.

I walked into the family room with my hands on my hips and gave him the look.

Still, he knew he'd already won the battle because the boys missed Jenny, missed having a dog AND had never had a puppy. Besides, even though two months wasn't a long time for me, it was an eternity for a child. I put up a poor fight because this one time I didn't know if I could take away my boy's excitement.

“How about discussing this first,” I asked him.

“Sure,” he replied. “I think we should get a Golden Retriever. They are great family dogs and are never aggressive. What do you think boys?”

“Yeah!” they hollered.

He ended up adopting a new dog. Later that afternoon, he got just the dog he wanted. A seven-week-old Golden Retriever he named Izzy. Of course she was adorable. Puppies come that way, but what kind of a dog would she be? He said she would be great. That ALL Golden Retrievers were friendly and good family dogs and we’d never have to worry about her biting anyone, like we did with Jenny.

After some cuddle time with the new puppy, he went golfing and the boys went out to play with their friends. Naturally, no one had thought to take the puppy out to pee. Apparently I just adopted a new dog.

I spent the afternoon (and the next ten years) tending to Izzy. The quiet was good for her to explore her new home, meet her new cats and try to figure out what pee-pee meant when I took her outside every thirty minutes. Adopting a new dog is never easy. Naturally she was so busy exploring the grass, and chasing bugs that she remembered to pee as soon as she got back in the door. Ah, I sighed, “Here we go again.”

She preferred coke cans to chew sticks and Nyla bones until she learned it was a no-no and thought the boys were other puppies when their father encouraged them to crawl around on the floor with her. No one cared about the new dog rules I'd explained until my cute little four-year-old boy got the edge of his ear torn by a puppy canine tooth. I had explained that if you act like a puppy, you will be treated like a puppy. And puppies bite each other. It's how they play. I wanted my sons to learn about dogs, but this wasn't quite what I had in mind when adopting a new dog. Luckily, my son Kyle understood completely and learned from the experience.

And its a good thing that by adopting a Golden Retriever we didn't have to worry about her biting people. She just attacked any dog that dare be in her sight, or a cat if it was in her yard; unless she was on the leash. Lucky for her, because she was cute and fluffy, she was always forgiven by friends and neighbors for her dog on dog aggression. And since I had no idea at the time that I was responsible for her bad behavior, I just used the leash every time we left the house to 'keep her from running amok'.

Still, those were happy days. She knew we ran every other day when I woke up so on those days, she made sure to press her cold nose against my cheek in bed to remind me, the second the alarm went off. Her enthusiasm kept me on track and in shape. She'd watch me get dressed and off we'd go for 40 minutes until it was time to get the rest of the family up to start their day. That special time alone made me grateful we had decided on adopting a new dog. Izzy and I shared many beautiful early mornings. We were fortunate enough to see the deer, bunnies, ducks and geese in a peaceful state before humans interrupted their day. And every once in a while we'd see a Great Blue Heron when we passed the pond.

Then, life changed. It always does. I was pregnant and sick. My liver went on strike so our jogging days were over for awhile. In fact walking from the kitchen to the family room made me a lot more tired than when Izzy and I had run two miles in the middle of the hot, humid, Southern summer.

Missing our early morning jaunts, Izzy became a couch potato. She took over doing what I was suppose to be doing, but couldn't because I had two sons to take care of. She'd stay upstairs on my bed most of the day and wander downstairs for food and a potty break and then head back up again. Well, until the infamous day another dog read the invisible sign outside that said, "Sucker lives here". . .and for once, Izzy didn't attack. Instead she fell in love and we got another jogging partner.

If you want to meet him, click My Sweet Dog Isaac.

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