Our new addition

I started to title this "Happiness is a warm puppy" but I had a feeling that the estate of Charles Schultz had a copywrite on that so I came up with my own clever title. Ok, not much imagination there but it's right to the point.

I wanted to start a blog for Jake because I've wanted to have a blog for quite awhile now and I just don't do anything interesting enough to write about. Now, my dog on the other hand has quite a life. Sometimes I just sit and stare at him, wondering what is going on in his mind. What possesses a cute little dog like him to want to eat dirty underwear, a pencil or our palm tree? Why will he bark at his own shadow at night but just stare at a possum? So many questions.....

But, back to the beginning. Last summer we were looking for a cute little puppy to add to our family. This was not a spur of the moment decision. Abigail had been wanting a dog for a few years and I had been wanting one since Jeff and I got married. I grew up with a beagle mix that was probably the smartest and most intuitive dog ever born (no, really) and after he died at the age of 18, I got a really stubborn, belligerent dachshund. That one lived 14 years. So, I was not without dog experience. When we finally decided to start looking for a dog, we went to shelters, looked at ads, went online but just couldn't find what we wanted. We knew we wanted an indoor dog and we wanted either a beagle or dachshund. Then one night I did an online search and found an ad for a "schneagle". A combination beagle and mini schnauzer. I thought it was a cute made-up name but wondered why they didn't call him a bauzer. That at least sounded funnier than schneagle. Abigail walked into the room just as I was looking at the picture and right away asked if we could go check him out. After exchanging emails, we went to the bank and then to look at this dog. The nice family that had him said his mom was a beagle and the dad was the schnauzer. They put the puppy in Abigail's arms and she was practically shaking as she said to me "Mom, I just love him so much." Of course, that's all it took. Sales people everywhere could make millions simply by putting their wares in the arms of a 10 year old and have them look up with their cute eyes and tell their parents how much they love---fill in the blank. I asked the man "so you're asking $100?" A price I was totally prepared to pay just because my daughter was still shaking with her love for this dog. He said "we'll take $50 for him. We're not in this to make money. We just want to cover some of the cost." At the time I thought he meant the cost of food, shots etc. Now I know he probably meant he wanted to cover the cost of a pair of shoes the cute little puppy had eaten. He told us his name was Clifford but of course, we could change it to whatever. We gave him his money, got a little bag of food and drove off. Abigail decided within 2 minutes that his name would be Jake. He looked like a Jake. And it was so much better than the other possible names she was thinking of on the way there. Names like Aden and Jason. Those are not dog names. And that's how we got Jake.