Almost and Someday

As you know, Cali died in October.   Almost immediately after many people offered their condolences they asked, "So, when are you going to get a new dog?"  At the time I was totally not ready to get a new dog.  How could any dog "replace" Cali?

It is now about 2 1/2 months since we lost Cali and a day doesn't go by that I don't think about the things I miss about her.

This past Saturday Eric got a call from his aunt.  She made a pretty cool offer; she offered to get our family a puppy, as a birthday present for our kids for their birthdays from now to forever (sounds like a good deal to me!).  She has two Cavalier King Charles Spaniels and since she knows that breed's needs and personalities, and she knows the dynamics of our family, house, and backyard, she thought one of those dogs would be a good fit for our family. 

Honestly, that kind of dog was not even on my radar.  I figured we'd pick up some kind of "mix" from a local shelter sometime in the late spring/ early summer, so we'd have the summer to get to know each other.

But then I got to thinking.  The kids love playing with Laurie's dogs.  They are really sweet dogs ...  Our backyard really is too small for a medium-large breed dog, like Cali, now that we added onto the house, so our yard would be the perfect size for a dog like that ...  Gosh, those Cavaliers are so cute ...  We really don't have time to take a "working dog" out on a daily basis to give it the workout it needs, and a Cavalier would be happy playing with the kids and getting a daily walk.  Oh, and if we had a dog  that the kids could actually handle on a leash, it would inspire us to get out more often for walks ... Yes, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel is the perfect dog for us!    I also realized that I no longer felt like getting a new dog was just to "replace Cali" but that I really just missed having a dog.

Eric and I talked, and then we talked with Ashlynn, and decided that we would like to take Laurie up on her offer.  Eric gave her a call and said we are very interested and think we would like a girl dog (for reasons I don't need to mention on the blog).  Laurie said she would contact the breeder (yay!) but warned us that she wasn't sure how many other people might also want girl dogs.

It didn't take me long to remember that the breeder Laurie used for her most recent dog had a Facebook page, so I checked that out and learned that the mama dog was expecting 7 puppies.  7 puppies!  We want a girl, so there's a pretty good chance there will be enough girls for us to have one.  Oh gosh, the puppy and dog pictures on the page were soooo cute!

Then I starting thinking through the details of having a puppy: house training, supplies needed, crate training, preparing the house and backyard, teaching the kids to pick up their toys so the puppy doesn't chew them, what we'll do with the puppy when we go on vacation this summer ...

And then I started thinking about how we were going to get the puppy from the breeder up in Healdsburg to our house.  Eric and I are going to be going up to that area in late March (for our 10th anniversary), perhaps we could pick up the puppy then.  How does Jet Blue deal with pet transportation? 

Yes, I was getting a little ahead of myself.  But, I figured that the sooner I got things figured out, the better prepared we'd be.

Ashlynn was getting pretty excited about the dog too (We didn't really talk to Carter about it because we knew his impatient anticipation might drive us nuts).  Despite our caution that things might not work out, she drew a picture and wrote a few sentences about how she was " so iksidid" about getting a puppy.   She took it to school on Monday to announce the news and her teacher let her read the sentences and show the class the picture she drew.   I think she was especially excited to tell her desk neighbor, Miles, whose family got a puppy for Christmas. 

On Monday evening we got the sad news that out of the 7 puppies, only 2 were girls and they were both promised to people who were ahead of us on the list.  Ahhhhh, man!

I guess it wasn't meant to be, but I was really bummed.  It's strange because I found myself grieving the loss of a dog that was never ours to begin with.

So, we're now going to wait. We know a dog will come along.

Someday we will get a new dog ... and our house will be full again.

In the meantime, we can imagine the fun ahead when we think of the fun times we've had with Laurie's pups.  Yay!

 We'll keep you posted!