Puppies!!

Weight lifting AND running! Check out that calorie burn, pretty awesome, huh? It felt so good to get in a good weight lifting session in and then follow up with a 1 mile run on the treadmill. I know everyone hates the treadmill but dang, was I happy to RUN. I don’t care if it was only 1 mile and if I was slow.

So this weekend was kind of a busy, crazy, special weekend. Michael and I met two dogs this weekend. After my workout on Saturday I frantically tried to get everything checked off my to-do list before we left to meet the first dog, Jazz. One of the things we had to do was puppy-proof the house. 🙂 We also stopped for lunch on our way to meet the first dog. We went to Fresh Grill and Michael got a burger, I got the buffalo wing chicken sandwich.

Back to the puppies…Jazz was a 3 month old mix–they think she’s a lab/Manchester Terrier mix but I think I see some Doberman in her, too. Her mom wasn’t too big so they think she’ll be around 30-maybe 40 pounds when she is full grown. Michael and I drove to Hillsboro to visit Jazz at her foster home.

Her foster mom, Eileen, is a super diligent, loving foster mom who’s number one concern is Jazzy’s health and happiness. It was nice to see that Jazz is flourishing in her foster home. She’s still a puppy and has a lot of puppy tendencies. She’s currently in the “biting” phase of puppy-hood.

Her foster mom has crate trained her and Jazz is mostly potty-trained, so that’s great. She has not been trained on commands, which is fine. We plan on taking dog training classes whenever we adopt. Since neither Michael nor I have had dogs of our own, we want to take some classes to help us do our best for whatever dog we pick.

Jazz was so affectionate, so sweet and lovable. She had a lot of energy but also chilled out and just chewed on her bone. We stayed about 2 hours talking and playing with Jazz. She’d been a little sick because of mites in her ears and all the scratching gave her a little infection/fever. She’s doing better with the meds and should be okay but the foster mom is going to take her back to the vet this week to double check.

On Sunday we met the other dog we were really interested in adopting. This dog was named Bella, a 10-month or so old lab mix. They aren’t sure what the other mix is, maybe some pit, but who knows.

Bella’s foster mom, Jen, was super nice and I’d been chatting with her through email for about a week. I shared my reservations about getting a dog (the cats’ safety, etc) and just talked about the kind of family Bella needs. Bella was definitely a bigger dog than Jazz and probably a higher energy than the puppy too!

Jen warned us Bella might be wary of Michael and nervous at first. When they arrived at our house, there was a huge windstorm going on and I think that freaked Bella out. She was barking (very loudly) and freaked out. We all went inside and I shut the cats in the bedroom.

Bella was super anxious and curious. She ran around the house smelling everything (probably looking for the cats) then we all went outside so we could play with the ball and get some of her nervous energy out. She loves play time! This is where she bonded with Michael and wasn’t scared of him anymore. He threw the ball and she played fetch and then rolled onto her back so he’d scratch her belly!

Bella’s nervousness was gone. We went back inside and Jen left for about an hour. It was just us! Bella immediately hopped onto the couch next to me and chilled out.

We just hung out and then decided to see how the kitties would do. Michael put Bella’s leash back on and held her and I let the cats out. Fat Kitty came out and his eyes were HUGE. He was curious and scared. Bella is living in a foster home with another dog and a cat and has shown no prey drive or aggression towards either. But I had to see for myself.

The cat came into the hallway and looked at the new creature but didn’t so much else. Bella was curious but didn’t lunge or act aggressively. She didn’t even bark or growl. Fat Kitty hissed and ran away. Then Bella and Michael got on the couch together. Bella started to fall asleep. Her eyes got heavy.

Fat Kitty came out again and came up to the couch and looked at Bella. She perked up and looked at the cat but didn’t do anything. And later when Fat Kitty was in the bedroom I encouraged Bella to go in there with me but she wouldn’t. She came right to the doorway and stopped and sat. It was like she recognized that it was the cat’s room and not hers. I think that’s a great sign!

Back to the couch where Bella fell asleep. And was SNORING! It was adorable. And it made me feel good. That meant she was comfortable in our house, she liked us, she bonded with Michael enough to fall asleep next to him and wasn’t obsessed with finding the cats. GOOD SIGNS.

Decision time!