I can’t believe it’s been nearly four months since we brought Chloe home. In some ways it feels like that’s a long time and in other ways it feels like she’s been in our lives forever! I will be the first to admit that I was really hesitant to get a dog at first because I was worried about what a big change it would be and was happy with how our life was! But my view has totally changed, I can’t imagine my life without this little face in it

Here are a few other things I’ve learned:

1. Be excited to see those you love!

Webster will meet us at the door when we come home but in an aloof, “oh, you’re home.” kind of way. Chloe is SO EXCITED to see us that she just wants to JUMP AND LICK AND JUMP all over you! Puts a smile on my face every day!

2. Be active every day!

Daily walks have become routine now. My new favourite way to start the day or end the day is by going for a walk or little trail run with her. She LOVES her walks in the trails so much that even if I don’t really feel up for it after a few minutes of watching her bound through the park I have a smile on my face!

3. Quality time with those you love is important, even if it’s something “boring”!

In October we did 1x/week obedience classes with Chloe and it was one of my favourite nights of the week. Sure, obedience classes aren’t *that* exciting but it was something Eric and I were doing together every week and with our opposite and busy schedules it’s been harder to squeeze that kind of one-on-one time in lately! Plus we have totally bonded over the shared responsibility for her. I love watching Eric interact with her!

4. It’s easy when you love someone/something!

Despite the first week or two of sleepless nights and 1-2 x per day accidents it really hasn’t been that hard or that big of an adjustment for us. We are naturally homebodies so not being able to drop everything and go hasn’t affected us at all. Before getting a dog how much “work” or “money” it would be was a definite con in my mind. But now? Now I don’t even blink an eye when I shell out money for doggie daycare, or puppy food or new toys. The extra money or work it takes is 110% worth it

5. Laugh daily! 

She’s just so cute and funny even when she’s getting in trouble. How can you not laugh at those pouty lips up there?!? Webster already made me laugh on a daily basis and between the two of them I now laugh several times a day, especially when they “play” together. There version of play is Webster whacking Chloe in the face while she tries to convince him to play with her

I know being a pet-owner isn’t for everyone but I personally LOVE having pets and can’t imagine our lives without them!!

If you have pets what lessons have you learned from them?

See my other installments of Nora’s Wine and Love series HERE!

WINE:

My blog. Some of you texted and emailed me about the mish-mash of code you got in your readers a few weeks ago. Apparently my blog has decided it doesn’t like ANY third party blog editing tool. Not Ecto, not Windows Live Writer, not Mars Edit. So sometimes when I try to use those tools it ends up looking like that. NO idea why! Sometimes it works fine, sometimes I have to try posting it again and again and it finally works. It’s so frustrating and I’ve googled my little heart out and consulted a few techies and no-one seems to know what the problem is. It’s really killing my blog mojo.

Potty training a puppy. Oy. If I had a dollar for all the pee and poop I’ve cleaned up for the last six weeks I would be a very rich girl…

Life. I just feel overall behind on life lately. I always seem to be one step behind on my schedule and have been over scheduling myself some days and then not scheduling anything other days. You’d think I’d figure out how to spread it out better? Our house is also a mess and we’ve both been so busy with conflicting schedules since Eric’s back at school that we haven’t been fitting in our 1.5 hours of cleaning a week. We all know a messy house = a stressball Amber so I think we need to find some time to clean soon!

LOVE:

My puppy. Cleaning up pee and poop does drive me crazy but omg is it ever fun and awesome being a puppy-momma. She is so cute and funny and makes me laugh every single day. I already knew how awesome it was being a pet-momma and Chloe has just added an entirely new, fun dimension to our little family! I can’t imagine our lives without her and we’ve only had her 6 weeks!

My 365 Project! I’ve been taking a photo a day and posting it on my personal Facebook page and my blogs Facebook page. I am having so much fun with this little photo-taking project and I can’t wait to see all the photos together after a year.

Wedding Planning! The enjoyment of wedding planning ebbs and flows for me but I’ve had some really successful things happen in the last two weeks. 1. The save the dates went out in the mail. 2. I had a really great talk with my wedding planner about all the detail stuff that was stressing me out and 3. The bridesmaid dresses have been ordered! Also, yesterday afternoon I was doing some google searching and came across these two stunning photoshoots of weddings at our venue. It made me fall in love with it all over again and got me even more excited about our big day in 9.5 months!

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What are your wine and loves this week?

It’s been nearly two weeks (on Thursday) since we brought little Chloe into our lives so I thought I’d give you a brief update on how we came to get a puppy (I know it seemed sudden to some), how life with a puppy is treating us and how our lives have changed and not changed!

Big Decision

If you haven’t been reading my blog for very long you might not know that Eric and I have wanted a puppy – specifically a boxer puppy – for a long time. Check out this comment I left on A Foodie Stays Fit blog in March 2010!

We wanted a boxer because we knew they were a fun-loving, playful, energized, friendly breed! And it doesn’t hurt that they’re pretty cute We did our research and had been watching local shelters, local breeders and kijiji for a boxer for about the last six months. It was not a sudden decision and we did not go into it lighthearted with the “OMG A CUTE PUPPY SO FUN” attitude. We knew how much work it was going to be but we are both dog lovers and we were ready for it!

Adoption vs. Breeder

We wanted to adopt if possible but we were also open to the idea of getting our puppy from a breeder. I’ve been keeping an eye on local shelters for the past six months or so and there have been very few boxers or boxer-crosses come through and the few that did had behavioral problems and weren’t recommended to be placed somewhere they’d be around children or cats. I think adopting animals is absolutely wonderful and I plan to adopt our next dog (hopefully a senior dog!) but I think getting a puppy from a respectable breeder can be the right decision for some people. Especially if your heart is set on a certain breed like ours was.

If you choose to get a dog from a breeder it’s very important to make an informed decision and make sure you are not supporting a puppy mill. We did two site visits to the farm Chloe came from before buying her and made sure the conditions she – and her parents – lived in were clean, healthy and happy. I also asked lots of questions about how many litters the mother has had and got all her paperwork with her origins on it. Here are some good articles about finding a good breeder and avoiding puppy mills!

Crate Training

Because I work full-time and Eric works full-time in the summer/goes to school full-time in the winter, we’ve decided to crate train Chloe. She absolutely loves her crate and will often choose to sleep in it with the door open even when we are home. Crate training is working out really well for us. She is only locked in it if we are gone or if we are home but distracted (i.e. showering or working out in our home gym downstairs). Eventually, when she’s fully trained, we plan on letting her roam the house during the days and sleep on a dog bed in our room at night, but that won’t be for at least 1-2 years.

How Our Lives have Changed

To be honest, not a whole lot has changed. At least not drastically.

I go home at lunch now, which I didn’t used to do, to let Chloe out, feed her and play with her. Once Eric starts school in September I will only need to go home at lunch 1-2 times per week instead of five times.

We’ve had less sleep. Chloe usually gets up once or twice a night and needs to be taken out so I’ve been pretty sleep-deprived. The two nights before my triathlon Eric slept downstairs with her so I could get a solid night of sleep and it was blissful!

Now we spend our evenings outside at the park playing with Chloe or walking her. It’s really nice and certainly a lot better than spending them in front of the TV or computer like we did before.

We can’t just pick up and go somewhere but we couldn’t exactly do that before with Webster either. The longest I would leave Webster alone at the house was two nights anyways and we aren’t really ‘pick up and leave’ people so that hasn’t been a big deal for us.

Of course there have been some peeing and pooping incidents on the floor. They usually make me want to pull my hair out at the time but luckily almost our entire house is laminate and where there is rug (staircases) it is pretty gross rug that we plan on replacing within the next 2 years anyways. Other than one minor chewing incident of the staircase step we haven’t had any chewing problems…yet!

We really love her already and all the extra work/money/planning is 100% worth it. When we were first getting her I had this irrational fear that I wasn’t going to love her as much as I love Webster (I really love Webster) Webster will always hold a special place in my heart as my first pet but my love has just grown with the addition of Chloe, not split in half

I really love being a fur-parent. I have absolutely ZERO desire to be a real parent right now but being a fur-parent is fun and rewarding even if it is a lot of work. The animals never cease to make me laugh multiple times a day!

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Question of the day: Are you a fur-parent? What kinds of pets do you have? If you don’t have any pets, do you want one?