the day the dog came home - part 1

This is the long story about how a small dream of mine came true.

Last July or August sometime Mr. Y Not and I were talking about dogs. His father has been raising and mushing (is that a verb?) dogs for about 30 years. Mr. Y Not eventually had a home pet of his own in a toy poodle. Yep, you read that correct, a TOY POODLE! My family on the other hand had a few pets over the years, but one dog that I believe meant the most to all of us. Norm, the yellow lab.

A toy poodle similar to Mr. Y Not's pet

A few years after Norm was sent to the “big farm” I was in college and wanted a dog of my own. Of course, I never lived anywhere that would allow a dog. Plus, there was no way I would have been able to afford it, if I was honest with myself. Still, I REALLY wanted a puppy! When I was living with my sister and brother-in-law their two dogs did the trick (a few of them, lol). But then they kicked me out to start their family and I once again was living in an apartment, still no dogs allowed.

Back to that conversation in July or August. Mr. Y Not mentioned that he wanted a dog. BAD MOVE BUDDY! I'm sure it was just an innocent “Sure, a dog would be great someday...” comment, but lil old me ran with it. I started pestering him to get a puppy. It was perfect, he could have it at his home and I could come and visit! Just when I thought I was making progress with him, he said he wanted to wait until spring to get a dog.

Why? Because it would be easier to potty train without the snow. I get this, I really do, and I accepted it. I accepted it without thinking through that we had this conversation in August and the snow wasn't going to start for months! Oh well.

Just because I accepted it did not mean that I stopped looking for a beloved puppy that I could cuddle up someday when spring came. Mr. Y Not had a few requests in my searches. He wanted a smaller dog (even a lab was too big) and would prefer little to no shedding. His first desires for a breed were Jack Russel Terrier and Dachshund. Eh, I wasn't crazy about either of those.

I won't go through every dog that I pined over (I was searching for months, and puppies that I fell in love with eventually were either adopted or ended up on the “young” section instead of “baby”). I started leaning greatly towards a Corgi.

An adult Corgi, so awkwardly adorable!

I thought I hit the jackpot when petfinder brought me a listing for a purebred Corgi. A breeder in Northern Minnesota was donating the cost of this Corgi to a local shelter. JACKPOT! I loved that I could get a purebred pet and still support a shelter. The listing was up for awhile, eventually I contacted the shelter to check, the deal seemed too good to be true (this was probably early March).

It was true, and I started getting nervous that a puppy wouldn't be available in mid to late April when I was actually allowed to get a dog. So I did a search to try and find the breeder (the name wasn't on anything), and found one that was fairly close. I contacted the breeder about their litter. This is where my time line mixes all together.

I asked the shelter about the puppies and found out that one of the volunteers' mom was the breeder (no name, just “my mom”) and those puppies were 6 months old, they had two left. The breeder (who ended up not being the same as “my mom”) had a litter due in April. Mr. Y Not did not want a 6 month old, he would prefer a newer pup, so the shelter was out. I had been wary of the breeder from the start because of a few factors and ended up emailing them with a list of questions which to me would let me know if they were a reputable breeder or not.

After not hearing back for a couple of days I decided to look around. I found another Corgi breeder closer to the cities and was excited. They had a website and I could see that they had a few puppies available. So again, I contacted them with the same questions. After not hearing back from either breeder for several days I went back to square one. With no breed in mind I went back to petfinder to see what new puppies were available (this was last Monday).

TO BE CONTINUED...