Our Puppy Adventure

"There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face." ~ Bern Williams ~

I've been a mommy for 8 years now. I've been through scraped knees, sicknesses, hurt feelings, and plenty of scraps with my boys and more recently a broken arm of my 8 year old. So when we made the decision to adopt a puppy I was certain I was ready. After all, I'm a mommy of two boys! A puppy would be no trouble at all! I imagined my boys running around the yard with the puppy behind them. I imagined lying in my bed with the puppy curled up beside me dreaming away. I imagined watching a movie with my family with my puppy at our feet. Oh, having a puppy was going to be wonderful! What I didn't take into consideration was an eye opener from the start.
The drive to pick out our puppy was such an exciting one. It seemed like it took forever to get there. When we got there we looked around. We saw one puppy that we took into consideration until I saw her. Aspen. I looked at her and she looked so afraid. She looked helpless. She looked at me with those big blue puppy eyes and it was love at first sight. We all agreed that she was the one and after filling out the proper paper work and handing over our fees along with our left arms and legs, we were the proud owners of a new puppy. She was so good on the way home. We stopped by the pet store and purchased some products to care for her. We picked up the basics: dog food, a brush, some doggie treats, a toy, a chew bone, another toy, food and water bowls, another toy, a few bows for her fur, a leash, a collar, and even more toys. Then the fun began as soon as we got her home. Potty training was the worst. At first it was cute watching my little puppy running around sniffing and turning circles. That cuteness would soon wear off after constant cleaning up of messes. The morning times were nothing like I had imagined. I had imagined waking up in the mornings and feeding my excited little puppy her food and watching her gobble it up with greed. The mornings are sort of like that, but instead of watching her greet me and wait patiently on her breakfast I drag her down the hall while she holds on to my pajama pants, shake her off long enough to get her food in the bowl, scream in pain when she accidentally grabs my ankle instead of the pajama pants, and then watch her gobble up her food greedly and messily.
The first few nights were long as we listened to her cry. She's a crier. She cries over everything. When she's hungry, she cries. When she wants back inside, she cries. When she wants a treat, she cries. When she gets woken up, she cries. When she wants to get in the front seat of the car, she cries. We took her and put her in the bed with us but that didn't last long as she associated bed time with play time. I was awoken very early to a puppy biting my hair and jumping on my head. Getting up at 3 am to let her go potty was no walk in the park either. In short, I felt as though I had a newborn baby in the house again.
As the days went on she began to become more and more mischievious. She preferred my shoes over her toys, preferred the cat food over her food, and preferred the carpet to go potty on instead of her puppy pad. We would sit down to dinner only to have Aspen at our feet crying for a bite.
It didn't take long to figure out she was a selective hearer. She refused to hear the word "no" but always heard the refridgerator door opening. She would listen to her name being called when we had a toy in our hands ready to play but not when it was time to come in. She was going to do what she wanted to do and there was no way around that.
Even though she is mischievious, we love her. We have enjoyed every part of becoming new parents to her. It's been a journey, but she's learning as are we. Not only has she learned from us, we've learned from her. We've learned to put our shoes up when we come inside. We've learned to keep a baby gate up to prevent her from going on carpeted areas. We've learned to pick the cat food up before we go to bed. We've learned to put food away when we're not eating it. We've learned to close the bathroom door when we're finished inside. We've learned to always keep her on a leash when we're outside. We've learned to grab a towel before she comes in after the rain. But most importantly, we've learned to love even more.