“A dog is a man’s best friend but only after it’s potty trained.”
“The world would be a nicer place if everyone had the ability to love as unconditionally as a dog.” M. K. Clinton
I am extremely excited to announce the newest member of our tiny family –
Izzy!
When we went to get her, she was 4.5 months old, and we have had her for about 3 weeks now. Her birthday is April 14th. So, she’s still pretty young. Her birth name is Eliza, but we decided to shorten it to Izzy. She is a beautiful F1B mini labradoodle with a rare phantom coloring. Her mother is an F1 mini labradoodle at 28 pounds and her father is a mini poodle at 12 pounds. From what the guy said, she’s expected to only get to about 21 pounds.
Now, I’d been wrestling around with the idea of a dog for a while. At first, I’d been completely against getting one because hubby and I are always so busy with work. I just didn’t think we – or I – could take care of a dog along with the kids. Dogs, like young kids, are just so much work. We are already under constant exhaustion these days.
I should bring up, though, that Abby has been asking about getting a puppy for probably over a year…maybe even 2! Oliver has been against getting one because, as he says, ‘I’m more of a cat person than a dog person.’ And my sister’s dog is rather large. He has always scared him. I think it’s mostly his loud bark because Max is just a big teddy bear.
I have even told him I could make sure it’s a small dog and he just stuck to his guns. I told him that if we did get a dog, it wouldn’t be for a while. He’s just as stubborn as his daddy, though. He didn’t want anything to do with the idea. Not even a little. He seemed a bit sad once I told him I was getting one someday, either way. Broke my heart but I knew he couldn’t be afraid of doggies his entire life.
Once I finally decided to look for a dog, I did so secretly. I was still on the fence about actually getting one because of how Oliver felt but also because of how hubby felt about pets. But I had quite a few conditions for our dog, too, because I didn’t want them to be upset with me forever. My conditions consisted of – over a year old, potty trained, small, little to zero shedding, and good with kids. Very strict conditions.
Now, while I was playing with the idea, I only looked around on Facebook groups to see what was available. I couldn’t really find any close by that was within my standards. The ones that actually were, happened to be too far away and very pricey. I thought about giving up…but then I started thinking about it more and decided it would be good for the kids. Abby really wanted a puppy and Oliver needed to get over his fear of doggies. So, I branched out.
I searched for animal shelters near us. Most of them had small dogs but don’t allow families to adopt them if they have small children (under 10 years). They were a bust. The others didn’t even have small dogs. So, I struck out on all those nearby.
That’s when I decided to check pennswoods classifieds and craigslist. I mean, there had to be at least one, right? Well, I didn’t find one, so I put an ad up to see if anyone would contact me. I then received 3 replies. Only one of them was appealing to me. I got into contact with this couple, and we had gotten so far as to set up a meet for the very next day. A beautiful 4-year-old white cockapoo named Winnie. Then, the next morning, before I could even message them to make sure we were good, they told me they decided to keep her and wished me luck. Quite odd, if you ask me. I was crushed. She was perfect.
Just my luck. 🙁
So, after that blew up in my face, I started digging a bit more. Researching, if you call it that, the ‘perfect’ type of small dog so I knew what kind I should actually be looking for. I looked at daschund, yorkie, beagle, cavalier spaniel, corgis, etc. Even thought about the ever-yappy chihuahuas. Most of those seemed to shed too much and a few weren’t too great with kids. Finally, I came across certain mixed breeds – yorkie-poo, cockapoo (like Winnie!), and other poodle mixes. It seems anything mixed with a poodle tends to shed considerably less. At last, I came across the top 2 that met almost all my standards – small-ish, family-oriented, minimal shedding/barking, etc. The gorgeous mini labradoodle and mini goldendoodle! Now, the hard part: finding one that was older and already house-trained.
And so, my search continued! Now that I had a certain breed in mind – TWO actually – I started back on Facebook. I looked for groups that had dogs for sale or free. I found a couple breeders. Unfortunately, their prices were way out of my budget. I already knew the animal shelters didn’t have the doodles I was actually searching for. I didn’t see either of them on the list of dogs they did have.
So, while searching for those breeds under ‘for sale near me,’ I came across a couple of sites that had breeders. I’m not proud of it. In fact, I felt horrible even thinking of purchasing from a breeder when so many pooches live in cells. But I moved forward because, unfortunately, I couldn’t find what I was looking for in those shelters. None of them fit our family and those that did were just too far away. I found a site called lancasterpuppies.com and browsed the list of the breeds I was interested in to see if I could find one old enough, nearest me, and in my budget.
Obviously, getting one with all of those together was practically impossible. So, I made some sacrifices and found around 7 pooches that I liked. Under a certain price and 5hrs away or less. The ages were the biggest problem. None of them were old enough to be house trained…and none of the older ones were house trained, either. I couldn’t find any within 5 hours that were close to a year old, either. The oldest one I found was 6.5 months at 5 hours away and she was still not house trained. I really didn’t want to travel 5 hours one way all by myself…so I, again, sacrificed. Age and house broken were off the list. My sister refused to travel that far, anyway, and I don’t blame her one bit.
After days of calling around and serious consideration, I decided on the closest one who was older than most of the rest on my list at 4.5 months old. My sis was more than happy to ride with me the 2-hour round-trip. On my next day off, I called the breeder and retrieved his address, then went to pick up my sis. When we finally got there, they had to identify the pups by pictures and collar colors. Strange, but okay. Abby and I actually decided on the fluffiest puppy they had (the only fluffy one), which wasn’t even the one we went to get in the first place. We went for Elsie and decided on Eliza. Of course, she changed her mind once I had paid for her. I felt bad for telling her we couldn’t just exchange once it was finalized. She cried for a little bit but seemed fine once we got halfway home. We did have to stop about 20 minutes away from home because our new puppy got sick on Kayla, who actually almost got sick from that! Anyway, we got it all cleaned up, Kay got to breathe some fresh air for a little bit, and Abby was thrilled to hold the puppy’s leash as we accomplished all this. Wish I’d have gotten her smile on camera. 🙂
When we did get back into town, we dropped off Kay at her house and then went straight to Petco to see about getting her cleaned up since she was pretty filthy. (Apparently, she had lived outside her entire life!) So, once they took her back, we went to get Oliver from school. When he got in the car, Abby spoiled the surprise. Ha. So, we headed back to Petco as he pouted, and they called to say she was ready. We picked her up and took her home. Yay!
She was very quiet and took a couple days to come out of her shell. And when she did, oh boy! After a week, she’d been doing very well with house training and crate training. Only one accident within that week. We had an appointment with a vet at the end of the following week for a full checkup and her rabies vaccine. Then I was able to get her a haircut…it had to be about 3 inches long! Long past overdue.
Now, as I’ve said, she has adjusted very well – with the exception of getting used to David. She usually barks at him until she realizes who he is…and sometimes even after that. It’s amusing until he yells at her or when it’s 1am and he’s coming in the door from work. :/
Now I’m working on training her. Not just the house training, which she has been amazing at! The getting on the table, jumping up on people, coming when called…and most importantly – recognizing her name. She is doing really well with that…once I received help from a YouTube video. (I couldn’t find a way, otherwise.)
I’m not naive, though. I know all of this is going to take a lot of time and more patience than I may have. I mean, all she’s ever known is living outside and doing whatever she wants. Everything she’s known has been changed so fast, and yet, she’s doing so well already. Growing up, we had a couple of dogs, but I definitely don’t remember all this work. Vet bills and training. It’s all very new to me. That being said, please don’t be shy! If any of you have tips, tricks, even advice – I’d love to know all of it!
This is a post from my old blog site. Originally posted: September 16, 2022.
