We Brought Our Puppy Home!

Somehow we all managed to get to the time where we could go to the breeder and pick up our puppy. The first puppy had been picked up on Wednesday and then the last of three families was leaving with their puppy when we arrived. We got the puppy orientation from the breeder and proceeded to drive home.

We were told that the breeder and one of her daughters took all of the puppies for a ride in their car, so that the puppies ride to their new homes would not be their first one. By German law dogs need to be restrained when traveling in cars, either within some sort of cage or by a harness. Since we’re going to start out with a harness, we need to take the puppy to the pet shop to make sure that it fits. Christine was holding him on the way home. He was kind of wiggly and ultimately buried his head under Christine’s arm closest to the door. It didn’t really seem as though he enjoyed the car ride too much. Fortunately for him, it wasn’t a very long drive.

We tried to take him outside right away so that he could take care of business. He wasn’t used to the leash and the rain seemed to deter him from peeing outside. We tried several times to get him to pee outside, but they were all unsuccessful and he did pee inside. Around 10:30 or so, I took him outside and he did finally pee outside (yeah!). I took him out again around 2 am and then again at 4:45 and we took him out a few other times since then. At the moment I have to say that he pees like a girl. I guess that it will be a little while before he hikes his leg like the other male dogs. He also hasn’t figured out yet that he should pooh outside.

It seems that it will take him a little bit of time to adjust to his sleeping crate. When we put him in it last night he howled like a coyote for a good (or should I say bad) half an hour. He also howled again when we put him back in again after his 2am walk. He made a variety of other noises that all let you know that he didn’t want to be in the crate. At least after the 2am walk, he didn’t complain nearly as long.

So what is our puppy’s name you might ask? Any ideas what we named him? How about, “He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named”, in honor or Harry Potter? After a lot of thought and discussions the name of our puppy is…

Hobbit. Named after those lovable creatures from Lord of the Rings (and the Hobbit, of course, Bilbo, Frodo, and so on).

It was so great to finally have our puppy home. It will probably take him a little bit of time to get used to his new house but he seems to be adjusting well. We're all looking forward to the big adventure or our first family dog and all the memories that will go with it.

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