Kellogg
January 28, 2007
Sunday morning we went to church, we were probably there in body, but not in mind. We were trying to decide whether or not to keep our over night friend. On the car ride to and from church, Sarah and I talked about the pros and the cons of keeping him, and whether we were going to be able to handle the commitment.
We both thought that for at least a month, if not a couple, one of us would have to come home and let the puppy out to do his business. We heard that a young dog can hold his bladder one hour longer than he is months old, so with him being just over 8 weeks, that meant not very long.
When we got home, Sarah expressed to me that she wanted to keep him. I didn’t picture giving him back, but at the same time I was unsure if he would be our puppy or not. I think for me, it was her want that made me take the plunge. About 2:00 we headed down to Petsmart with our puppy to see what would need to be done to make him a permanent member of our family.
We were at Petsmart for about 2 hours, there was a lot to do. We had a number of forms to fill out, one of which was a waiver for the dog’s health and any sort of guarantees. We thought about it, but there isn’t anything you can do, if you want a dog from them, you had to sign the waiver and we never thought it would ever be an issue for us. Part of the happiest news, and something small I took as a sign, the dogs were going for $40 today, instead of the $60 yesterday, so I thought that was a pretty good deal.
We carried him around as we went from place to place. As we got through with forms, we took him into the local vet hospital that is located inside Petsmart and had them do a simple preliminary check over for his health and to see if there was anything wrong. I wrote a whole article about this in my “Opinions” section. It was an ok look over, but beyond something obvious like the puppy missing an eye, it really didn’t do anything other than for a simpleminded person who may believe an ok from a vet assistant meant they had some ultimate power to read the puppy’s mind.
Nothing against that vet assistant though, she was very nice. We talked to her, trying to figure out what we were going to name him. She had a couple of dogs, and the names just came to her. Her biggest piece of advice was to not second guess our first thought and just go with it, so we took that to heart and went about our other necessities.
Then, we had to go get food. We got a long education from one very knowledgeable worker at the store about different foods, what was good, what wasn’t, etc. etc. Then, we had to a book of coupons, so we had to hunt around the store for the initial necessities, a collar, a lease, and one toy. Then, as if there wasn’t enough already, if we wanted some of the deals we had to sign up for the official Petsmart card.
But by late afternoon, our new unnamed puppy was all ours and we took him home.
The lady that gave us all the advice on the food, told us a story about a lady she had met that wanted to bottle up Puppy breath so she could smell it anytime she wanted. Uh, right…Not us. We do not like the dog’s breath, and hope it goes away, but are going to be proactive about it as well. We got him some green breath fresheners and he seems to like them. He had better, his breath stinks like stale poop.
The rest of the night we laid around and took turns playing with him and just hanging out upstairs in front of the tv. Eventually we had to put the puppy to bed, so we took the box that we had kept him in, into the room and put it next to the bed so we could keep an eye on him.
Introduction
Our puppy Kellogg. Our sweet puppy Kellogg that we loved so much, and we lost too soon.
We had been recording his puppy firsts and his growth in a little written book that Petsmart had given us, but I thought maybe a section on my website would be more appropriate. As I started to write about him, to deal with the pain, it turned into a biography of his life, and I felt like that information was important. We need to remember, we need to remember what it was like to be happy with him, that he was happy, and not concentrate on his last moments which is so easy to do.
So although most of this will be written in retrospective with the best of my memory, it is pretty close to the right dates and what actually happened. I don’t expect anyone else to understand, but Sarah and I will look at this in time, and our hearts will mend. It is for us, and for what Kellogg brought to our lives in such a short time.
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.
