Meet Bear

We got a new addition to our family -- a 4-month-old Husky puppy! The kids named him Bear.

We have been thinking about getting another dog for quite a while (Courtney of course has been begging and pleading since our dog, Molly, died over the summer). But this all happened rather quickly, so I'm still kind of surprised we have a dog sitting outside right now.

I stopped by Courtney's classroom last Tuesday and Courtney came over and asked me "Can we get a puppy?" This is a very common question from her, so I didn't think much of it. But then her teacher said, "I've been telling Courtney I have her puppy when she's ready." I asked her, "You have puppies?" She told me that they have had one dog for quite a while and recently got two husky puppies. But their yard is very tiny and the huskies are already quite large, so they had decided they just couldn't keep all three dogs and were looking for a good home for at least one of them. I told her we might be interested and talked it over with Brian that evening. He agreed that this might be our opportunity to get another dog. So we told her teacher we would come and pick him up on Saturday (today).

Her teacher had named the dog Benny, but we decided to change his name to Bear. He seems to be very playful and the kids just love him. He could probably benefit from some training as well, but we have pretty much zero experience as dog trainers, so we'll see how that goes.

I hope he is able to adjust to our family and to being an "only dog". It was kind of sad to take him away from the other dogs. Her teacher told us that he has never been separated from the other husky (they were from the same litter) and when we tried to take him out of the yard, he didn't want to go. She said he had never even left their yard at all and she ended up carrying him out to our van (poor boy!). You could tell he was so nervous and scared in the back of the van. I had to carry him back to our dog yard when we got here, but then he seemed excited to play with the kids. I have heard him whining/crying quite a bit tonight since the kids came inside -- and of course the dog yard is right outside our bedroom window. He has been an outside dog all along (never went in the house), but now he is all by himself. So we'll see what the night brings!

He is a cute puppy and we hope he enjoys it in his new home!

And in other pet news, we will also probably be getting a cat in a couple of months. While Courtney has been the one begging for a dog, Hannah has been begging for a cat. Our friend's cat just had kittens and told us we had first pick, so I told Hannah she could choose one (she has already decided she wants the white one). We won't get the kitten for a couple of months still until it is old enough to leave its mama.