Personal Blog - New addition to the family

I’ve been wanting to write this blog for months. I thought it would be easier, but I had forgotten how much work is involved when you adopt a puppy. I wasn’t planning on adding a new member to our family this year. My husband and I mentioned getting a second dog every time we looked at our loving, quiet, well-behaved rescue mutt Sundance, who is now 7-years-old.As they say, the first one always convinces you that a second is a brilliant idea.

We went to a friends house for dinner on June 6th. It wasn’t just us. There were four dogs in attendance, and Sundance had the time of his life. He didn’t stop smiling the entire time. We decided on the way home that when one of our other furry babies passed on, we would rescue another dog. Ripley, our 13-year-old bunny, must have heard that conversation because he went into seizure as I was feeding him is late night carrot and celery snack. He died on the way to the emergency vet. It was not at all how we were expecting to end that wonderful evening.

I miss him everyday, particularly when I am cooking. I have all these vegetable scraps and no one to give them to. I have no one to share a late night veggie snack with. The loss of Ripley took it’s toll. Within a few weeks I was cruising Petfinder looking for puppies. A little over a month later we passed all the criteria required to rescue from For the Love of Dog. A few weeks after that, we were going to pick up our “Shepherd Mix” named Thumper. She came up on a truck with several other dogs from a rescue in Alabama. Most of these dogs had been in shelters that typically euthanize 500 unwanted dogs a month. A sharp contrast to New England, where puppies in need of rescue are few and far between. The truck pulled in and they called her name. I stepped forward and they put her in my arms. She was a cuddler right off the bat.

We put her in a pen with the other pups to wait for additional paperwork. A crowd of people were around this pen. Thumper, who we had already decided to rename Dakota, stayed in the center, away from the people, unless I bent down to talk to her. Somehow we bonded right away. Sundance was thrilled to have her at home as well. She’s a silly little girl that makes us laugh more than we ever thought possible. Now at 10-months, she is Sundance’s pesky little sister. As evidenced by our holiday photoshoot, when she stole Sundance’s hat. She still needs a few more months of training, but she did a good job for her first shoot.

Here are a few photos from our family photo shoot. We’re thinking of using the last one for our holiday card. What do you think?