A Boy and His Dog

Okay, so you may have noticed (or not) that our dear, sweet pups have not had any blog-love lately.  In fact, it seems as if they might have even gone MIA.  About a month ago, Josh and I made the tough decision to give both of our beloved pups away to good families.  Minnie Pearl was lucky enough to stay in the family and is living the good life in Georgia as a companion to Josh's dad.  Teeny, on the other hand, is now a permanent resident of the great state of Illinois and is with a family here that has a lot of land, other dogs, and room for her to RUN.  I'm not sure if you've read past posts on these animals of ours, but needless to say, Teeny had a bit of a running-away obsession problem.  Many times she would be out wandering the neighborhood only to return hours later- many times in the middle of the night.  When I was on bed-rest last year she managed to escape and I hobbled down the stairs (against doctor's orders) to let her back in when she returned later that day.  We tried an underground fence, remote-controlled shock collar, a very expensive (and labor intensive) fence, and even resorted to chaining her up and nothing seemed to work.  She really should've been named Teeny Houdini.  We've shelled out a pretty penny getting her out of the pound twice now and it the animal control officer now knows our family members by name after numerous house calls.  I love that silly animal, but unfortunately she had become quite a liability and a major source of stress that we knew we could not sustain forever.  We knew that we would have to find a place for her before we moved since we will more than likely live in a place without a fence (not that a fence makes much difference!).  I knew we had made the right decision when she disappeared for a few hours on the morning that we had planned to take her to her new home.  So thank you, Teeny, for confirming my decision that day.  I do still have a little bit of guilt (and a lot of sadness) surrounding our decision, but I know she'll be happy where she is at.  And honestly, from the moment she was out of this house, a huge weight was lifted off of my shoulders.  I had no idea how much stress she was causing me as I constantly worried about whether she would get out, who (or what animal) she would encounter when she was out, and when (not if) she would be picked up and taken to the pound again.  Between that and the amazing lack of of dog hair that is now in the house, I know it was the best- if not difficult- decision for our family.  Wow, we are responsible!

Or are we???

Fast forward to only a couple of days later...

A few weeks ago, friends of ours had a dog that gave birth to a litter of labradoodle puppies.  Josh has been spending much time with this family because they want to plant a Crossroads campus in their community and he has been working with them to help make that happen.  They would always tell us that we needed to take Jake over to see the puppies before they were all gone, and we agreed that it would be fun time.  They also joked (or so we thought) that we needed to come pick our puppy out.  Considering that these pups were selling for over a thousand dollars a pop, we never took it seriously.  We finally did get out there, however, so Jake could play with the little ones, and it was so fun to watch him giggle and squeal as they clamored over to him.  There were five left (although one had been claimed) and they rolled over each other and wrestled and it was pretty darn cute to watch.  After awhile we went inside and spent some time with these friends and filled them in on our future plans as well as what would lie ahead for the future of their potential church campus.  As we were wrapping things up, she handed me a folder and said, "Here is the paperwork for your puppy."  I shot Josh a "do you think she's serious?" look and he kind of shrugged back at me.  Upon opening the folder, however, it was evident that she really meant it when she said we should take one home.  All of the puppy's papers were there along with medical records and pictures of mom and dad.  As we walked back outside, we still were not sure where this was going.

Well, it was over the moment we passed back by the pen.  After giving them a few more pats, one strayed away from the bunch and sweetly looked up at me.  Oh boy.  And then I made the mistake of picking him up.  And it was all downhill from there.  On the way home we reasoned that (A) it is one of the nicest (and most expensive) gifts we've ever been given, (B) it was okay because this breed doesn't shed, and (C) every little boy needs a dog, right?  Um yeah, it's Jake's dog.  Totally.

It has now been two weeks since we added a member to our family (after freeing ourselves of two very naughty members) and thankfully he has been an incredibly mellow pup.  Seriously... I have never met a puppy that is this calm.  He is very playful in the mornings and occasionally gets a little too wound up when Jake is running around outside, but other than that he is pretty content just laying around the house.  We even took him on an 8-hour road trip this past weekend and we hardly even knew he was in the car. I know it wasn't the smartest decision in the world, but so far so good.  So without further ado... we introduce to you our newest member of the family... Wrigley!

Seriously... who could resist that face???

Best Buddies... not sure who picked who

It's a bird, it's a plane... it's Super Pup!

As for the name, we decided that we should pick something Illinois-related since this is a little piece of this place that we're taking with us when we leave here.  And even though Josh is a Braves fan, he loved the name Wrigley as soon as it was suggested.  I'm not a Cubs fan per se, but I don't dislike them either, so it works out.  Besides, it definitely suits him.  Hopefully his antics will not be as stressful or blog-worthy in the years to come.