Over the last few weeks the talk of adding to our family has come up. I mean, why settle for a small family of 8 - Mom, Dad, 4 kids, 2 dogs? It's all too - even. I mean come on, we have perfectly even teams here. 4 girls 4 boys, two adults, two girl kids, two boy kids, one girl dog, one boy dog. So we've been talking about how we would like to mix it up a bit. The kids are all for mommy having another baby. All of them. Mom and dad, well, we like the idea of a new little baby, but the 6 month - 3 year old phase- well it is feeling a little over done around here. And, while this may sound selfish, but, well, I am down 8 lbs, TWO pant sizes and feeling GREAT!! I have not been at the weight I am at since - a long long long time ago. I want to keep losing. I don't want to start over again. So, in fact, I am not preggers. If it does happen- well, we'd be happy for certain, there is something so amazing about having a large family. I watch those TLC shows and think that if we'd have started much younger- that would be us on tv! However I am turning 36 next month and I think my baby making days are in the past. (Such a great past though).
So what to do?
Why get another dog of course silly!
We've toyed with the idea of a puppy. Very hesitantly, but it sort of satisfies that desire for a itty bitty thing in our life. Someone had ads up in the local paper for German Shepherd pups and that got us talking. It also got me thinking. I decided that if we were willing to spend money on a dog, and we knew that we wanted a GS, then I wanted to see if there was a local rescue.
Google being the best friend to me that it is found Westside German Shepherd Rescue of Los Angeles . It is a bit of a long drive for us but close enough to drive down for their Saturday morning adoptions. We filled out the application, and spent the next week pouring over the pictures and descriptions of dogs. Ben was still leaning toward a puppy I was thinking more of one of the 1-2 year olds. Saturday morning we loaded up in the car- all of us, dogs too and left for the rescue. We didn't tell the kids where or what we were doing. Only that we were going somewhere near the "dinosaur museum" they are so fond of. Once we arrived we clued them in, but warned them that we were just looking and meeting- since we were not sure if we'd be able to take the dog home immediately or not.
It is really heartbreaking to see so many unwanted dogs. They only have a handful out front at a time but gosh, look at the web page- way too many dogs. The first dog we met was Dax, a two year old male. He was beautiful, gentle and sweet. Definitely on the list. We then met one of the pups. A 4 month old boy- sooooo cute. He was sweet and really beautiful. He would also grow to be a quite large dog- bigger than the two we have. He was definitely on our list. We walked and met at least 7 or 8 dogs. Each having their own great personalities. Some were off the list quickly because they tried to mount Bungee. One of our criteria was that the New Dog would not immediately try to become the alpha. Bungee will be 15 in March and he has spent his life as alpha and we did not want to take that away from him. We also wanted Daisy to be able to hold her place in the line up. We had narrowed it two to two dogs- but were still really waffling. Did we really want a puppy? The other girl dog we looked at was a sweety too. Sheila. She really seemed to like Bungee. There was another family that was looking at those two specific dogs too. What to do? Then L walked out with Reina. "Who is that dog??" we both said. Reina is a 3 year old girl, the picture of perfect when looking for perfect in a GS (which we were not- but wow was she PRETTY). We asked to meet her. The dogs all seemed indifferent (good sign) and she was well behaved and sweet. I think we both fell in love right away. We knew we'd found our dog. Reina had been staying in L's home for the last month as a foster dog so we were able to glean some information about her. The more we heard the more we liked. After 3 hours of looking at dogs, we were on our way home- with a nervous Reina in our car.
We've had her almost a week now and she is really fitting in well. She rarely barks -but I know she's got a good one. Her first night she let me hear it. Owen had gotten up to go to the bathroom and I heard her walk up the stairs. I listened but did not hear her go down. I got up and stood at the top of the stairs and looked down. It was very dark, and I could see she was not on the stairs, but I didn't see her at the bottom. I must have stood looking just long enough to make her nervous. She jumped up and started barking at me. That really deep, protective GS bark. I quickly told her "Reina No!" and came down the stairs. She stopped immediately and was quickly wagging her tail happy to see it was me. I settled her down and went back to be. She was up and ready to go for a walk with me first thing Sunday morning. I took both her and Daisy. My walk is around 3 miles- I don't go too fast. It is more meditative that cardio- but I do try to get my heart rate up a bit. She walked like a dream, responding quickly to gentle tugs. I worked on some basic commands throughout the walk. She did well and only needed some gentle pushes on her rump to "sit". By yesterday morning I didn't need to do much of anything but say "sit" and she did. We've left her home inside with the other tow dogs for as long as 4 hours and have not had any problems. She acts much like the other two actually and is happy to find a spot in the house and just lounge. She doesn't seem to be interested in "fetch" which bums out the kids, but Daisy was too smart for that game too so I guess I'm not surprised. Who knows though, maybe she'll take an interest once we let her off leash at a park.
I am waiting to get her paperwork so that I can register her as ours. She is microchiped and up to date on all her shots. She is gentle with the kids and has not fussed about the other dogs. She's barked a quick yip at both of them on one or two occasions each, but mostly I think she has found herself part of a new pack and is happy to take her place here. Owen asked when she would know that she was ours. I told him it would take some time and that we just had to let her know we loved her and to be sure and let the other two dogs know that we love them too. I can see that in the span of a week she has be come more comfortable already. She seems to adjust easily to what ever the situation is. Her next test is a trip to Vegas soon. We are taking the kids to visit Gramma and Papa. Our original plan was to leave the dogs home with Ben's brother watching them since it will be a quick trip, but in light of our new addition we are bringing them all.
Here are a few pictures of our new girl...
This is Reina with her foster Mom L
Here we all are just after signing the papers for her. (the extra kid in blue ended up adopting one of the other two dogs we were thinking about)
Here's the 3 of them waiting for dinner
The boy's with their new girl.
Hanging out...
