Friday, January 11, 2013
Dog Daze
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| Our new family member, Merlin, getting used to his new bed and surroundings. So far this is the only good picture we can get of him because he's afraid of cameras! |
A lot has happened since my last regular posts.
A minor project to keep our upstairs from freezing in the
winter turned into a major garage/workshop renovation.
Hurricane Sandy swept through New Jersey and although it
thankfully did no damage to my house, it did knock out our power for months and
months. (Okay, it was really only about a week, but it seemed like months and
months to a tech-geek like me.)
Major changes at work have meant I've been putting in a lot
of overtime which has left me little time to do more than sleep and eat.
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He might be camera shy, but our new dog
Merlin, loves to be hugged. In fact that's the
only way we can get photos of him.
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We adopted a new dog.
That's right, my wife and I are once again puppy-parents!
Regular readers of this blog may remember that we lost the
last four-legged member of our family about 15 months ago ("Still Tuggingat our heartstrings"), and
that his passing stuck me very hard. We only just started looking for a new dog
about four months ago, but had no luck.
Each time we thought we had found the perfect pooch for our
now two-person pack, the dog was either already adopted, wasn't the breed, type
nor temperament we were looking for or the animal rescue organization said we
weren't fit parents because both my wife and I work and their dog couldn't be
left alone during the day.
To say that we were both becoming a bit frustrated by the
process is an understatement, and I was now beginning to think we just would
not be getting another dog again. Fifteen months is a looonnnng time to go
between pets and I was already becoming very accustomed to the freedoms of not
having one. So when my wife asked me last Friday night if we were going to look
for dogs again on Saturday, I said yes reluctantly.
It's not that I didn't want a dog. I just didn't expect that
our visits to the local shelters would turn out any differently than they had
in the past. In fact, I was ready to call it quits if we didn't find a dog by
that day.
So of course, you know what happened.
After checking out a few more places and yet again coming up
empty-handed we happened to pass our local country store, which sells lawn and
live-stock supplies, and my wife noticed that they were having their monthly
pet adoption event that day. So just for the heck of it we turned in, and
that's when we saw him.
They were calling him Abe, and he was a little 2-year-old
black Lab mix who kept pulling himself up on top of the puppy playpen to be
petted by anyone who passed by.
I can't say that it was love at first sight. But he was
cute, affectionate and seemed rather calm. We took him for a walk and my wife,
who's a good judge of dogs (not to mention husbands!) gave him the thumbs up.
Then she asked me the question, which a few months ago I
would not have thought twice about.
"Do you really want a dog?"
Strangely I hesitated.
I missed having Tug around and love playing with and being
around our neighbor's dogs. So why now was I so unsure?
Was it because I had been suckered into briefly fostering
another Lab mix this past summer who turned out to be a little terror? Or was
it because suddenly it hit me that my carefree "childless" days were
over?
I think it was the latter.
As I said, 15 month is a long time to go without a pet and I
can now understand why some people go right out and get another dog immediately
after their last one has died. It's very easy to get used to not having to
worry about running home to take care of your dog or cat and doing whatever you
want, whenever you want. The idea that I was giving all that up for at least
another 12 years terrified me.
In fact, all of last weekend I kept second-guessing myself,
wondering if I had made a terrible mistake. I kept thinking about all that
new-found freedom I had given up and was scared of all the bad things this new
dog would do until we eventually got him trained. I think now for the very
first time, I understand what new fathers go through when they either learn
their wife is pregnant or the mix of emotions they feel when they hold their
first newborn child.
But now just after a few days, I've fallen back into my old
"doggy dad" routines and my fears are all but gone. Thankfully our
dog, whom we've decided to call "Merlin," has proven to be pretty
well-behaved and seems just as laid back
-- if not more so -- than all our other dogs combined.
I'm sure there will be a few challenges with him down the
road. But for now I'm happy to hear the pitter-patter of four paws on my floors
again.
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