Harriet

Maybe I'll use the new puppy as my excuse for being gone for a year. Just ignore the fact that we got her this April, and it will be fine.....

Jason and I had been talking about a puppy for a long time. We had decided on a basset hound! Jason loves the droop. What does that say about me?????

We found a rescue, and were waiting to see a puppy pop up available for adoption. Why a puppy, you ask? We have 2 wonderful cats, and seeing as how this dog was going to weigh more than bot of them combined, we thought we should give them an advantage at the start. Ha. So, my industrious husband was also searching petfinder every day. One day, a basset mix came up. It say he was a basset/ ST BERNARD. I'll wait while we are all wondering how that happens....

We went, and he was very cute, but as an adult dog, we were worried about cat prejudice. So, they brought in a cat, and that dog lost. his. mind. He needed to get that cat more than anything else in the world. That was not going to work for us. We prepared to leave, dogless, but not too disappointed, we'd just keep waiting for the right rescue. However, when we were walking though the kennels we had seen a large pile of cute, and had seen something about a basset mix litter that was at the shelter as well. The shelter worker suggested one of the 11 puppies from that litter. There were some with short legs, and some with long. She brought a little girl with stubby legs, a big puppy belly, and green eyes. It was over.

She ran right up and climbed into my lap. I'd thought we were getting the dog for Jason. After all, dogs LOVE Jason, they look at him differently than other people. I'm more of a cat person, I feel like I identify with them more. But at that moment, I fell in love.

We named her Harriet. We've decided now that she's a basset/austrailian shepherd mix. Plus whatever else. We know her mother was a basset, and she certainly has the basset body type, short legs and a long back. The color, especially they eyes, led us to the aussie conclusion. We hadn't even thought of that until one morning at puppy class, a new aussie puppy sat down next to her. Their eyes were identical, and they were the same red color.

I'll stop now, but I could talk about her for hours. We've joked that she's our practice baby. I had no idea that a puppy could be such a whirlwind in your life.