So yesterday I wrote my blog about feeling guilty. Then an opportunity presented itself. Last month, I started researching hunting dogs as a Father's Day gift for my husband. He has tried to take our Maggie, but she is pretty much worthless. She loves being outside, but almost died once from some sort of insect reaction or maybe a scorpion sting? She is also afraid of anything dead which prevents her from retrieving waterfowl or doves.
For a good bloodline, started-trained hunting dog, it was going to cost us somewhere between $1500-5000. Even my dedicated, hunting obsessed sweetheart, said no way, but then once he had a bee in his bonnet, spent the next week searching for a dog. And he found one.
He found a breeder about 60-90 minutes away who was selling dogs from good bloodlines for $400. I used to sell my German Shepherd pups for that and they were just AKC registered no real champion bloodlines. For an extra $600 he would keep the dog for another two months and put the dog through basic hunting training. It would cost more than that just to board the dog for eight weeks much less training.
We decided that this was too good of a deal to walk away from. But we rent. So we needed to get permission to get another dog. I contacted our property manager last week, but didn't hear that we had the owner's permission. The manager promised she would contact me Monday to let me know if she'd heard from the owner. I didn't hear anything. I contacted her late Tuesday afternoon and she gave me the go ahead. This was 2:50.
I emailed the breeder and asked if we could come pick out our puppy tonight. He had three males left, one black and two yellow. He got back to me at 3:10 and said that he would be available until 5:30. This is where the race began. I was in my car racing home by 3:15. I changed my clothes, grabbed the dog so we could do a canine meet and greet. Then I raced to fill up the car with gas and pick up the baby.
We were headed his direction by 3:55, but my GPS said with traffic it would take 1 hr 35 to get there. The baby cried a lot. Then she fell asleep. She wasn't crazy about the puppies licking her, but the pup we chose seemed to like her and not mind Maggie. He is pretty calm and preferred to stay around us rather than roam so it was all good. He even licked Maggie. Very cute.
Then I put the baby back in the car seat. This did not go well. She screamed for 45 minutes. She started just fussing and crying, but wound up to full fledged holding her head and screaming. Then she calmed down and I thought we were safe, but NO. We discovered that Lil Bit hates the car seat because she gets car SICK. I won't describe, but let's just say I had to pull over to make sure she didn't aspirate and to clean as much of it as I could without removing her from the seat. YUCK.
Then she fell asleep and slept for quite awhile. So, of course, she throws a major temper tantrum when I tried to put her to bed around 9:45, almost an hour later than usual, and spent an hour screaming off and on and generally throwing a hissy fit. It was the perfect ending to a very LONG evening. (read: NOT)!
The good news? Chad got on chat for just long enough for me to tell him I needed to talk to him and I had an email to send him. He's been pretty sure this isn't going to happen and I wanted to surprise him. I sent an innocuous email with "Hey" in the subject line and an image without a name. When the image opened it was the picture below. The message simply read . . .
For a good bloodline, started-trained hunting dog, it was going to cost us somewhere between $1500-5000. Even my dedicated, hunting obsessed sweetheart, said no way, but then once he had a bee in his bonnet, spent the next week searching for a dog. And he found one.
He found a breeder about 60-90 minutes away who was selling dogs from good bloodlines for $400. I used to sell my German Shepherd pups for that and they were just AKC registered no real champion bloodlines. For an extra $600 he would keep the dog for another two months and put the dog through basic hunting training. It would cost more than that just to board the dog for eight weeks much less training.
We decided that this was too good of a deal to walk away from. But we rent. So we needed to get permission to get another dog. I contacted our property manager last week, but didn't hear that we had the owner's permission. The manager promised she would contact me Monday to let me know if she'd heard from the owner. I didn't hear anything. I contacted her late Tuesday afternoon and she gave me the go ahead. This was 2:50.
I emailed the breeder and asked if we could come pick out our puppy tonight. He had three males left, one black and two yellow. He got back to me at 3:10 and said that he would be available until 5:30. This is where the race began. I was in my car racing home by 3:15. I changed my clothes, grabbed the dog so we could do a canine meet and greet. Then I raced to fill up the car with gas and pick up the baby.
We were headed his direction by 3:55, but my GPS said with traffic it would take 1 hr 35 to get there. The baby cried a lot. Then she fell asleep. She wasn't crazy about the puppies licking her, but the pup we chose seemed to like her and not mind Maggie. He is pretty calm and preferred to stay around us rather than roam so it was all good. He even licked Maggie. Very cute.
Then I put the baby back in the car seat. This did not go well. She screamed for 45 minutes. She started just fussing and crying, but wound up to full fledged holding her head and screaming. Then she calmed down and I thought we were safe, but NO. We discovered that Lil Bit hates the car seat because she gets car SICK. I won't describe, but let's just say I had to pull over to make sure she didn't aspirate and to clean as much of it as I could without removing her from the seat. YUCK.
Then she fell asleep and slept for quite awhile. So, of course, she throws a major temper tantrum when I tried to put her to bed around 9:45, almost an hour later than usual, and spent an hour screaming off and on and generally throwing a hissy fit. It was the perfect ending to a very LONG evening. (read: NOT)!
The good news? Chad got on chat for just long enough for me to tell him I needed to talk to him and I had an email to send him. He's been pretty sure this isn't going to happen and I wanted to surprise him. I sent an innocuous email with "Hey" in the subject line and an image without a name. When the image opened it was the picture below. The message simply read . . .
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This is Mr. Orange. I was thinking we could call him Blaze - he is the one licking Lil Bit.
In my mind, I am imagining Chad waiting impatiently for his super slow internet to download the picture, his eyes lighting up, and maybe even a shout. Of course all I got on chat was - OMG!!!!
It made his day. He even liked the name I came up with, Blaze. He wanted to name him something with hunting patterns in it, but Max is so super popular for dogs and RealTree is a bit much. The color hunters use to not get shot is called Blaze Orange and since he is Mr. Orange of the litter (all the pups are identified by color of collar) it seemed cute.
I was so excited. Although we don't get to enjoy the cute puppy period since he will be 4 months old before we bring him home, we avoid housebreaking and training and chewing and . . . And I got to make my husband happy.
He can't tell me what they're doing this week, but he said they've been working on details up late last night and he would have a week's worth of days that don't end until at least midnight and start before 7 a.m. He is tired and homesick and I took an evening and really today too since I am wiped out from the late night to give him something he has wanted for years to look forward to when he gets home.
We don't need another dog. It will shed, poop, eat. We have a small house and too many dogs in the neighborhood. It will need exercise and veterinary care. But he sacrifices so much of the things he loves to go across the globe to defend our way of living, it really is the least I can do to take in another animal.
I've certainly appeased any guilt I had left over (at least for this week) and won't feel quite so bad if I miss him on chat . . . oh, who am I kidding, yes I will, but I left my cell phone in the other room for the past twenty minutes. Baby steps, people, baby steps!
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