With all the excitement of our upcoming addition, I totally neglected to mention our newest furbaby member. My apologies to him for the delayed introduction. Before he makes his blog debut, I thought I’d give you some back story…
If you’ve been a reader for any amount of time, you know that we have two dogs, Kirby & Lucy. They were great dogs, but Kirby had a bit of a dark side and he is really uncomfortable with children. I adopted him several years ago when he was 9 months old, and didn’t have him around any children. After I’d had him about a year, he had his first encounter with a pint size human and he was not a fan. Several years of observation later, and the best I can guess is that some kids were very mean to him, he fought back to protect himself, and then off he went to the overnight receiving kennels to be adopted out without any history.
Fast forward to our discovery that we were going to be having a pint size human and we knew we’d need to figure out something for Kirby. As it would happen, my parents dog passed away a few years ago and they have been in dog withdrawal (and subsequent denial about the withdrawal) for some time. Kirby fits in great with their empty nesting, quiet, lifestyle so he has retired up to South Dakota. We were planning to just have Lucy but after a few months without her brother, it was EXTREMELY obvious that Lucy is a multiple dog kinda gal.
We wanted to make sure her new buddy would be good with kids, so we set our sites on puppies 6 mos. or under, knowing we’d have time to raise and socialize them before the new baby comes. I know, you’re thinking it, we’re crazy. However, we found Hurley. Hurley was 4 months old and had lived with a foster family since he was 6 weeks. He was brought in to a shelter in Kansas City at 6 weeks where they were going to put him down. Thankfully, a rescue group found him, raised him in a foster home with his brothers and sisters, and got him ready to go.
He’s 5 and a half months, weighs 45 lbs, and is doing great in his puppy classes. Lucy is significantly happier and I know he’s going to be great with the new baby as well. Not sure what he is, some sort of lab mix probably (super vague, obviously, haha) but we’ve never cared much about pedigree in this house, only temperament.
Without further ado, I’d like you to me Mr. Hurley!
As for how we got his name, we just stumbled in to it. His given name was Snoopy which just was not jiving with us, so we tried out several before we found one that fit!
Anybody else adding any new family members? New or Fur? Any tips on getting dogs ready for kids?? We’re in full baby prep mode over here as far as dogs are concerned…
