Our new dog, Betsy

It's official, we've finally adopted a dog. She's about 2 years old, a hound mix, with 2 bundles of energy and a bit of a bad habit to whine which she picked up copying all the other dogs at the shelter. Hopefully we'll be able to train that out of her because she's picked up a lot of other things we've taught her even in the last 14 hours, like sitting, not jumping on people and staying off the furniture (although she tries to sneak past you on that last one).

She's a pretty curious little dog (about 30 lbs.) and ferocious with her toys. Out of all the toys we bought for her, she's demolished everything except for the indestructible pig which she doesn't like as much because, go figure, it's indestructible. Anyhow, we've finally made good on our goal to adopt a dog, and the people we worked with, "Pets Without Parents" were easygoing and prompt with paperwork, most importantly not selling the dog out from underneath us.

I will be removing the "Daily Puppy" and replacing it with a weather application if I can find one, since that is a useful tool to have during this time of year.

Doggies!

We're headed over to another pet adoption place tonight and the ball is rolling on new paperwork. Amanda found some new dog options, two of which we're headed to look at tonight. First though, you have to see the picture of this adorable little beagle/chihuahua mix. Of course, that's a bit smaller than we wanted, so it's not really an option for us, but if you want, it's still waiting for a home.

So the two dogs we are going to look at tonight are pretty similar in a few ways. Both have interesting names, "Keegan" and "Betsy Boop", but who says naming your dog has to be boring? Both are about the same size, cost, colors, and health status. Now we just have to see them and interact with them to see whether or not they actually fit for us.

Of course, this is a no-kill shelter, which is nice, but still means that we're not really saving a puppy from being put down. However, we are looking at adopting a dog without a home, and that's a really good feeling for me. Time will tell how much work will go into having a pet and whether or not we were totally ready for it. But I think all the preparation in the world still can't leave you fully prepared for the unknown. We are ready enough, financially stable and this is a nice/fun step for us in our relationship as well.

No exams, just puppies

I don't blog daily, but when I catch a lucky break, I can throw a few blogs together to summarize what I've been thinking about and doing for the last few days. Since I knocked out my biochem exam yesterday morning, there has been a feeling of tremendous relief in me. I am not happy with my performance on the exam at all, but I am glad to be done with it after 2 weeks of studying.

Puppies seem to just control people's minds, more girls than guys. I don't think there's a day I don't hear someone cooing over a little dog (even if it isn't a puppy) and talking about how cute it is. This now goes for my wife as well. I finally agreed that we need a dog around the place. I would like one that barks at strangers, and gives me more motivation to take fun walks outside beyond the daily trek across campus every day. I can't speak for Amanda's plans with the dog, but I think that having one would be good for both of us and we're ready to add more difficult pet than our fish Jensen to the relationship.

Finding dogs, easy. There's millions out there for adoption. Picking a dog can be just a little harder. As I previously stated, girls typically seem to go crazy over puppies. As she scrolled through adoption sites, there was barely a dog she didn't think was cute, and trust me, if she didn't think it was cute then it was butt-ugly. I was worried we'd never be able to settle on a dog the way she got excited about all of them, but it turns out that finding one is more important than exactly which one it is to her. So now we're starting to sort through dogs and narrow out ones we really like. It seems we have good taste, because so far we've been luckless in actually being the first to even visit a dog we liked.

In honor of our efforts to find a dog, I will be adding the "daily puppy" to my blog sidebar. This, and searches of your local animal shelters are a good way to start looking into what kind of a dog is good for you as well as then finding dogs to look at for possible adoption. Good luck!