January 27, 2007

We had made a commitment today to go out and look at puppies. I heard that there were going to be a cute shepherd mix at one of the stores, so we were hoping in particular to see those dogs. We started at Petsmart, they seemed to have quite a few puppies up for grabs. There was one really pretty dog there that I was interested in, but the breed wasn’t something I was interested in for a grown up dog, so we resisted.

In a litter of what looked like boxer lab mixes we saw a puppy that caught our eye. We had been looking for a dog like Lady, and were really drawn to what looked like a little Shar Pei. We spent nearly the next two hours playing with this little guy. He kind of wandered the store, exploring, and wasn’t too interested in us. Then we started to try to get his attention with newspaper, crumpling it up and making noise, and that got him excited. He bounded next to us, trying to nip the paper, and this was what we were looking for, a playful puppy.

Then he took a little break to poop in the corner:)

We talked it over, and decided that we would take advantage of the “foster” program, and take him home for the night. From then on out, he was pretty sleepy. We carried him out of the store, wrapped up in my fleece jacket and took him home. But first we had to make a stop at Walmart, to get some blue Dawn soap. We didn’t realize that this was a good cleaner for puppies, but that is what the rescue told us. After rolling around in dog waste for the past couple of days, no matter how cute he smelled like a fuzzy turd.

The first thing we did when we got him home was to give him a bath. Surprisingly, he was very good and seemed calm through the whole process. But he sure did shiver a lot, his small little bony frame was thin to the point that we asked about his health when we were at the store. Malnourished but normal, we were informed that there was nothing to worry about.

He wasn’t very eventful that first night. He would sleep for very long periods of time, with short bursts of playtime that would last about 15 minutes. We got a lot of photos of him sleeping in a Pampered Chef box we made up for him with some blankets, and on top of us in a blanket.

When he was awake, he was very playful, he would play with anything we gave him. We made a sock filled with newspaper for him to chew on because of his reaction to the newspaper in the store, and that got us in some tug of war matches. He even got his tiny mouth around a tennis ball that we got from the garage and carried it around some. Sarah had a little doll from a cereal box that we gave him as well. It was a Dr. Seuss character named “Thing 1” that had this thin little red body, and electric blue hair styled like he was Einstein or something. I think this was probably his favorite toy, he would carry this all around with him, where ever he would go.

We both spent the whole night playing, and stayed up pretty late. I stayed up the latest, which meant that I got to lay him down for the night, which we were both worried about. We had made up a little blanketed area in the garden tub, sectioned off with two laundry tubs. I laid him down, pet him some, and then shut the door.

His whimpering started immediately, and it lasted for awhile. Sarah got up, laid on the tubs in the bathroom petting him until both he and Sarah fell asleep. Sarah eventually came back to bed and he slept through most of the night until the early morning. Sarah got up with him, took him outside, and then stayed in the living room half napping half playing until I woke Sunday morning.

Here are some similar arcade posts

• January 28, 2007
• January 31, 2007
• January 29, 2007
• January 30, 2007
• April 26, 2007

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