Puppy Arrival Day

At our PR (puppy raiser) meeting a couple days ago, they were talking about the group getting some new puppies during May and June. I was sort of disappointed, because the people waiting for puppies already had dates to receive them. We just had our home interview two weeks ago, so I knew I was still pretty low on the list, but it still hurt a little to be left out.


Last night I started getting the feeling that I would get a phone call this week telling me that a puppy was scheduled to come to us next month. This morning, the feeling was very strong that the call would come today. I was out with my wife Cindy this morning. We were just getting back in the car to come home, but the car next to us parked too close for us to open the driver’s door. So, Cindy was trying to crawl over from the passenger side. Then we heard the cell phone ring. She was pretty well stuck with her butt in the air, trying to get seated behind the wheel and cussing the phone for choosing that moment to ring. But, it was my phone, not hers. I saw the call was from our group leader, Rita, and I got pretty excited. Then she told me she had some good news. A puppy that was supposed to go to another group suddenly became available for us. We could pick him up anytime this week. An hour later, we were on our way to Palmetto to get him. Since we weren’t really prepared for a puppy yet, we stopped at Target and picked up some dog toys and other stuff.


We were very excited and nervous on the half hour drive to SEGD. We met our goldador, Joey. We found out he was one of the four puppies we were playing with a couple weeks ago when we brought my dad there for puppy hugging.

On the way home, Cindy drove while I had Joey sitting at my feet. Soon he was up on my lap, looking out the window and getting to know me. We got home in time for him to have some lunch and check out the house. Then I had to pick our youngest son Colby from school. I didn’t say a word to him about the pup. We got home and he went in to say hi to Mom, and saw Joey laying in front of the couch. He was speechless! Now I had a couple hours before our other son gets home, so I went out to get a cage, since they didn’t have one at Target. I had the cage set up in the bedroom by the time Brandon got home. Another speechless kid!.


Throughout the day, we were getting emails from our puppy raiser group, congratulating us and looking forward to meeting Joey. It seems that Rita had emailed the group right after informing us that we were getting Joey.


We had our first housebreaking accident while I was making dinner and Brandon was playing with Joey. I had just told him to keep a close eye on Joey, that he may have to go outside. It looks like our first outing tomorrow will be to the vacuum parts store to get our little spot bot carpet cleaner working for the first time in a couple years.


Joey has spent most of his first day with us just sleeping on the floor. The kids have taken him out for a couple walks, but he tires out very quickly. He walks very well on the leash, but doesn’t like going out the door.