Isn't He Cute!

Today is Fred's birthday. He is 10 years old. This is the most recent picture of him. It was taken a couple of months ago at my parents house. He's still as cute as ever just a little grayer.

It's hard to believe we've had him for that long. We had quite an auspicious start with him. Mike and I decided one day that we wanted to get another dog, we already adopted an older bassett from the Humane Society. So one day Mike saw this cute bassett in the window of a pet store and convinced me to go take a look. Of course he knows what a huge animal lover I am and knew that I would want him. Sure enough as soon as I saw him I was in love. He was 11 weeks old and so cute and tiny(hard to believe he was ever tiny). I thought he was perfect and it would be a breeze to add another dog to our clan. Boy was I ever wrong. Fred was the dog from hell. I had no idea puppies are like babies. They have their days and nights mixed up and they aren't potty trained. Not only that, but they bite everybody and eat everything. We went through more shoes, belts and pillows than anyone would ever imagine. Our older dog was not happy to have Fred, Fred wanted to play with him and he was too old to play. They never did become the best of friends.

Fred and Mike bonded immediately, in the pet store. Fred and I had to learn to like each other. When we got Fred I was a college student and was home most of the day. So of course most of his care and training fell on me. I had no idea how to train a dog. I tried to be super nice to him so he would listen to me. That did not work. I would tell him to not do something, he would stop, look at me and then go back to doing whatever it was he wasn't supposed to do. Now if Mike told him not to do something he stopped immediately. That used to make me so mad. I wanted to take Fred back to the pet store at least 20 million times in that first year. Eventually we hired a trainer to help us (he flunked puppy preschool, no surprise there). Now 10 years later Fred has become a momma's boy and never leaves my side. It's really cute.

Things I've learned from Fred:

1. Dogs are stubborn. Since Fred had his days and nights messed up and I wasn't getting any sleep I thought it was a good idea to bring him to bed with us each night. I tried leaving him in his crate at night and he would just howl all night. Not kidding, all night. Sleeping in our bed worked well because he was too small to get down and get into anything so he learned to sleep at night. The bad part is that it takes years to reverse the dog of that habit once they learn it. Fred would rather sleep with us than anywhere else.

2. Puppies bite.

3. Potty training a dog can take 9 months no matter how strict you are.

4. Dogs are the best pets. There is nothing like coming home from work at night and your dog is waiting at the door for you with a toy in his mouth. He does it for me when I get home and then repeats it when Mike gets home. It's so cute and heartwarming.

Wow, this is a long post. As for the rest of life. I'm finally feeling normal again, it only took 8 days of antibiotics. Mike is enjoying the great golfing weather we are having. I'm getting the hang of my new job and am really enjoying it. I'm off to Lava Hot Springs on Friday with my friends, Russ and Adawna. We go every year and it is a blast. I will post pictures next week. Mike won't be going because he hates to camp even it's only a day or two. He gets to stay home and take care of the creatures.