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Our New Puppy

His name is Billy. He's from the shelter. In a moment of insanity George, Elijah and I decided to drop by the Humane Society yesterday. We have been talking about getting a dog for a while and recently George "relented" and so agreed to go in.

We're never sure when we go to the shelter that the "right" dog will be there. But there he was, begging to go home with us.
Rose is so excited! Billy will never be lonely, I can tell you that. He got his name at the shelter. We thought of changing it, but Eli likes it, and since Elijah's a little afraid of dogs--due to past experience with a 95 pound yellow lab we had a few years ago but had to give up after a year--we're letting Elijah make as many of the decisions as possible. It turns out both Elijah and Billy are a little shy yet, but I think it's going to work out just fine.

Billy's smart and calm, and he even tired out after just a 1/2 hour walk at 6 a.m. this morning. We're shocked. He's nothing like that Lab we had. We're hoping for a much better experience this time. Billy is, get this, part Beagle, part Boston Terrier, and part Alaskan Malamute! He's 25 pounds now at 5 months of age, so he will likely not get bigger than medium-sized, which we need because he has to fit in the Honda Civic with us. We think he's just a beautiful mutt, with a loving personality.

As Rose pointed out just a few minutes ago, we now have a family of ten. Ten! That's ten mouths to feed between the four humans, the four chickens, the dog and the cat. I hadn't thought of it that way. But, the more the merrier in my eyes. Welcome to the Zahn Family Farm.

(We're having a bit of a blizzard today.)
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Comments

CoCargoRider said…
Congrats. We are looking at getting a dog also to help with chicken protection and companionship for us and them. You may know this already, but a lab is a bird dog, so please be really careful around the chickens.
Namaste,
Devin
12:11 PM
Lisa Zahn said…
Actually, Billy's got no Lab in him even though he kinda looks like it. Still, we'll definitely keep him and the chickens apart.
12:53 PM
~CarolynA said…
Lisa did you go to the shelter in st cloud on 10? If so did you by chance see a black labbish dog about 4 named Dude?
1:12 PM
Lisa Zahn said…
Rae, we did go to that shelter, and we can't recall seeing a lab named Dude. But we weren't looking very carefully at labs! I'd call them if you want to know...
1:20 PM
Judy T said…
Congrats! Our dog was an adoption but not from the shelter. He was abandoned near my parent's farm and just stuck around. My Mom is NOT a dog person so we ended up with him. Ours is 95 lbs so I understand how bad experiences with big dogs can happen for children. Luckily my children are old enough to fend for themselves when he gets overly playful.
1:24 PM
Anonymous said…
Congrats on the new puppy!!
12:52 AM
Unknown said…
I LOVE Billy! Oh there's nithing like a dog. he looks so sweeeeeet. Ok, get it together Mon.

Let's hope it all goes wodnerfully for you all.
8:31 AM
It's me said…
Hope he works out for you. Shelter dogs are such a crapshoot. A good one, but still a crapshoot. We ended up with a real sweetie and hope you did too.
11:28 AM
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