Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Welcome Isabella and Eisen

Well, we're back from our visit to Milwaukee to pick out our newest family member. All that fuss about selecting a name and the kids did the most wonderful thing... they found a dog they liked right away, and knew her name almost as instantly. They settled on a female, which I am totally ok with, and they named her Isabella, or "Izzy" for short. Izzy is smaller than her brother, but her colors are beautiful and her fur is far softer than his. She likes to hop about, she mistakes Lillie for a sibling puppy, and she likes to snuggle up and be held. She's my kind of dog for sure. Bonus... Garen seemed to really like her as well.

Eisen is Bill's pup. Larger than Izzy, Eisen has a very square head. His fur is kinda course but his colors are even darker and prettier than Izzy's. His paws are huge! He'll be a big dog for sure. Eisen seems to be a bit afraid of heights so he doesn't like to be picked up as much as his sister, but he does snuggle up to people's feet like Izzy does. Both pups are doing great on the housebreaking... and they are rather playful. They pick on each other quite a bit, but all in all they're really good dogs.

Taking the kids to pick the dogs out turned out to be a wonderful idea. Lillie ran right into the litter of 7 puppies, even with mom and daddy dog barking madly from their kennels. That day was the pups first day outside, and they got ran around like crazy thanks to Hayden and Lillie. Hayden was a bit more timid about simply diving into a pack of puppies, but he eventually came around, too.

Sadly, we had to leave Izzy with Bill and Eisen until after our planned trip to Disney World this summer. I didn't have it in me to ask someone to watch such a young pup, and Bill's brother Len was more than willing to take in both pups for that week. So until June we'll have to settle for seeing her on the webcam... but at least she gets to spend a bit more time with her brother.

Here is a video of the kids meeting the dogs for the first time and some pics of selecting and then playing with our new family members... enjoy!

Hayden and Lillie playing with pups at the breeder's


Lillie holding Izzy at the breeders

Izzy in the foreground and Eisen in the background at the breeder's

Me and Izzy

Bill and Eisen

Izzy and Eisen (She's got pink, he's got blue)

Izzy chillin' in the back yard

Eisen who'd recently finished chewing on my shoe.






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Tuesday, April 19, 2011

A Rose By Any Other Name...

Would that apply to a dog, too? Does a dog still smell like a dog regardless of what you name it? Of course it does, but that doesn't mean I want to be heard shouting "Sir Snuffles McBeth Von Schnauzer Fluffypants the Third" every time I call the dog. I recently posted on Facebook for suggestions on what to name our soon to be addition to our family, but instead got a lot of reasons that I shouldn't own a new puppy right now. Granted, there were a couple names suggested among my friends and family, but thus far, the names my family likes I've found myself. Here's a list of what we've got so far.


There are other names we liked but those are the top ones thus far. Garen has a few other choices in mind like Thor and Odin... but I'm really not digging on those. We'll have to meet our new pup first, and then decide upon a name suiting of his/her personality, and of course of his/her being a German Shepherd. So it's not too late to throw out your .02 cents on this issue, if you've got an opinion on naming it, that is. On owning it, well that's a mute point now, it's already paid for.


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Monday, April 18, 2011

The One With The Introduction

Ok, so maybe you get it, with the titles and such? Or maybe you don't. Just in case you don't (don't feel badly, Garen apparently missed the reference as well) the title of the blog and the title of this post are in relation to the TV show Friends, which used the "The One With..." format for every episode. I don't actually intend to label all my posts this way, but I liked the idea for the title of the blog... and hey, it's always a nice fall back when I can't come up with a clever title on my own for future posts.

So yup, a blog... on blogger... which is different than my previous wordpress attempts... and there have been many. This time around there's no just WoW, no just poems, no just "the kids drove me nuts today". I plan to simply post whatever crops up to my mind. Somedays it might be mindless complaining, other days, I might have an actual well formed opinion on something to share. Or maybe my kids were doing that cute thing again. Who knows? We'll see what I come up with. Otherwise, welcome. Make yourself at home. My life is pretty crazy so I hope you'll stay open minded with me here.

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