Introduction

The reason why I'm completely puppy obsessed before I've even gotten my puppy is that I have wanted a dog my entire life. Whenever I would ask for a dog when I was little my parents would tell me that when I was 18 and living on my own, I could get a dog. What a crock! I'm now 25 and I'm just now at a time of my life where it's feasible to get a dog. Between college dorms and tiny city apartments, the early years of adulthood just don't lend themselves to a good dog environment. Finally, we are done with school (well almost, anyway), working well-paying stable jobs, settled into our house, and ready to add to the family (I'm referring to the puppy, of course. No kids on this couple's horizon yet!)

But the devil is in the details. There were still a couple more snags along the way. My husband actually wanted to wait until we bought our next house before we got a dog! We have a small concrete backyard with our current house, which wouldn't be good at all for an outdoor dog. We were planning on getting a larger dog, and we didn't want to keep the poor guy locked in the cramped house all day while we were at work, so at first we decided to wait until we bought a house with the right backyard. Then one day a friend of ours asked a novel question: "Why don't you guys just get a smaller dog?" I slapped my forehead, turned to my husband, and said "why can't we just get a smaller dog, honey?" He didn't have an answer.

I think he was adverse to getting a smaller dog at first because he envisioned bringing home a 3 pound chihuahua name Tinkerbell. Once I helped him realize that there were smaller dog breeds that weren't necessarily toy breeds, he was much more open to it. So that's when we decided, we were finally ready for my dog! A 25 year dream realized!