Crazy? Quite possibly.

As many of you know, my dog Pauli (otherwise known as my baby girl) died in July. She had lung cancer. It was a great loss to us and very surprising as she was only 7 1/2 years old. Anyway, Pauli was a wonderful dog. She was very sweet and loving. She loved to be cuddled, pet, kissed and hugged. She was very good with J and N. She was just a great pet and we miss her SO much.

Zoe and Pauli (February 2008)

We originally got Pauli because our dog Zoe was lonely. Zoe is very much a dog dog. She loves to be around other dogs. We always joke that she would choose a complete stranger dog over us any day. Anyway, we got Pauli 7 years ago because Zoe, then 3, was lonely. Since Pauli's death, we have thought about getting another dog but just can't bring ourselves to do it. We know that Zoe is lonely without her. We know that we are missing her. But we don't really want another dog, we want Pauli.

Anyway, while I was home for Christmas my mom was looking online at dogs and puppies because her dog passed away in June and just recently her 19 year old cat passed away. I started looking too and decided that we are ready to get a puppy.

I've been obsessed with petfinder.com ever since. It's a great source for adopting pets. There are TONS of them available for adoption in this area. But we decided to focus on female puppies that would grow up to be medium size. There are a lot of really great looking 1 and 2 year old dogs, but we feel that with the boys we really need to get a dog that is 6 months or younger. With older dogs there is too great of a chance that they have had a bad experience that may lead to a bad reaction to a curious child. We are generally drawn toward dogs that remind us in some way of Pauli. She was a German Shepherd/Hound mix so we keep going for Shepherd mixes. Anyway, on Thursday I found a set of puppies that I fell in love with. They are 3 month old German Shepherd/Welsh Corgi mixes (3 females). Imagine a shepherd face on a short stocky body. B wasn't convinced, but I decided we had to go to the shelter and check them out. Two of the three were adopted on Friday. I was sad, but determined to go get our little girl on Saturday. We drove the 30 minutes to check her out. We got there and she wasn't in her cage. We looked around. The shelter was really nice. There were some other cuties, but none that said "I'm the one!" Then we saw her. She was adorable. She was a little ball of wagging cuteness. She was with another couple. They had just adopted her. I was crushed. B tried to make me feel better by saying she was too short and stocky and he didn't think she was the one, but I thought she was adorable.

We came home. N, in his into-everything-crawling-like-a-mad-man way, crawled over to Zoe's dog dish and dumped her water all over himself. I thought to myself, am I crazy? I have a demanding 2 year old, a 7 month old who's very mobile and very curious, and a husband who travels a lot. Am I really ready for a chewing, not housebroken, not knowing the rules puppy?

I decided that I was just lulled by the joy of having B around for two weeks straight. I was just sucked in by those sweet puppy eyes and the thought of having a little puppy to snuggle with. I think I was suffering from temporary insanity. So as I sat and enjoyed a little peace and quiet (and knitting time) last night as the boys were snuggled in bed for the night and as Zoe lay peacefully on the floor, I decided that maybe a puppy is not what I need right now.

But then as I did an end of the night e-mail check, I decided to look at petfinder.com just one more time and I saw this one and the insanity began again. I need to call and find out more information. Is she the one? Are we ready? We will see...