Puppy Maggie

We did it, after a lot of debate (which I even blogged about), we bought a puppy!

She's a 12 wk old Irish Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier, and we named her Maggie.  Maybe we're crazy, we're not out of apartment yet and we have a toddler (almost 3 yrs old) running around but we did it.  The drive to the breeder in Belgium took about 1.5 hrs, so I was a bit worried about the ride home, but she did brilliant.  I was worried about her 1st night here, the breeder said she heard back from other new owners that their dogs whelped until 1AM, but she did fine.  (I'm a worrier.)  Maggie was up at 6AM, but since she slept through the night I couldn't really complain.  I must say, she knows very little yet and we have a lot of training ahead of us.  I haven't mopped so much in my life (even while potty training our daughter)!  Just because there's a puppy in the house it didn't stop my daughter from wanting to head to the playground, with or without Maggie.  I decided to give it a shot, we walk everywhere and she needs to get used to it.  At 1st I put the puppy in the stroller with my daughter, but after she leapt out near the fire station and scared us all, I decided she would walk from there.  Halfway to the park I seriously considered turning around, but this is how they (all of us) learn what to do and how to act.  Of course the park was packed full of kids, which was very exciting for the puppy, I could barely keep her in one place.  And my daughter was having trouble grasping why I couldn't go on the seesaw with her, but once the dog is trained we'll get back to playing together like before.  Or we'll just leave the dog at home.  My husband is a real softy for dogs and tried to get her to sleep in our room last night, but I said if our baby handled her own bedroom alone on the 1st night home, so can the puppy!  We did end up sleeping on the couch for a while, just to make sure the dog fell asleep, and in all fairness it worked quite well.  Besides the excitement of the puppy we added a small hangover and bad weather to the situation.  The night before, our daughter stayed at her aunt's and we headed into town, we knew if we bought the dog we might not get nights out together for a while and took full advantage of it.  The headache followed me all day, and I was ready to fall asleep by 9PM, but luckily everyone in the house was exhausted!

The plan was for me to drive home from the breeder in Belgium but the weather and hydroplaning on the highway made my husband nervous and he decided I should pull over and he drive (men)!  Once we crossed the border and the weather toned down (the photo is the tail end of one of the storms) he finally let me drive again.  Actually it worked out nice because the puppy had time to cuddle & bond with both of us on the drive.  Wish us luck, because we've just entered a new phase of our lives!  Next phase, get a house.