Picking a Puppy

It’s happened!  We officially own a puppy. If you follow me on Instagram you will have seen her in my stories.

My husband and I have wanted a dog for many years.  We thought about having one before we had kids and then decided against it.  We had a cat before kids and she just attacked all our company. So once we got pregnant we had to re-home her.

Here’s our experience of Picking a Puppy.

1: Research

I can’t stress this enough.  We spent close to a year spending time researching different breeds and watching lots of videos of dog trainers and their advice online about picking a puppy and what to expect.

I grew up with a dog, where my husband didn’t.  So I have some experience with having a dog.  Difference is, I grew up in the country.  Living in town with a dog is a bit different.

We chatted with lots of friends who had dogs and chatted with lots of dog owners in our neighborhood or whenever it was possible in public.  Most dog owners love chatting about their dogs.

Don’t buy a dog on a whim, take your time.

2: Preparing the Family

We have 3 kids, ages 7, 4 and 20 months. Something my husband and I do as parents when we are introducing something new to our kids is talk about it a lot. Give lots of info about whatever adventure we plan to go on and the expectations when we are there.

We let our kids know a year ahead of time this was going to happen. My husband and I had agreed 2020 was the year to get a dog.

Our kids aren’t exactly used to pets as they aren’t around them a lot.  Plus most of our friends over the years didn’t have any pets.

We got them around dogs a LOT. The more comfortable they got around them we started searching for a local breeder.

3: Finding a Breeder

This part was interesting. We were given lots of suggestions of places where people bought their dogs. Most them were out of town.  These were dogs that we met and loved their temperament. The other thing we noticed…$$$ very expensive.

We did find a breeder in our neighborhood, again her price was more then we wanted to spend. My husband and I agreed we would feel more comfortable with getting a mixed breed and if possible from someone we knew.

We happened to go hiking with a friend and her dog was along. Remember I talked about introducing our kids to lots of dogs.  With my friends dog our kids were super calm and not scared around. It just so happened her dog had a litter that next week.

The mom is a Shepherd/Lab.

4: Picking a Puppy

For us lots needed to happen before we even got to pick the puppy. Which means we are near the end of our journey of picking one and bringing one home.

We are an active family, we get out whenever we can.  The yearly planning I talked about in my last blog post about scheduling plays into that. We knew we wanted a puppy that would be both calm and well mannered yet want to keep up with our busy family.

One of the best advice we got was to get out and meet the litter and just see them first. Plus, we got to meet each puppy one on one and that helped us narrow it down. Our boys each had a favorite which made the process a bit interesting. Thankful our boys are maturing and we were able to talk them through it.

We happened to find the runt of the litter, she was calm, listened super well and was well tempered. Plus her markings were super adorable, that made picking her extra helpful.

5: Picking a Name

Since we had talked about getting a puppy for so long we had a running list of boy and girls names going. One of our names was “techie”, picked out by the boys.

We ended up going off popular dog name websites and just running down the list of names.

The name we picked is “Kona”. This way the family she was with could start calling her by her name.

6: Taking her Home:

Kona has been with us for a few days now. It’s been a bit of an adjustment, mostly for the kids.

Night time has been challenging as most people warned us and we read up about that fact. Our oldest admitted putting his pillow over his head the first night.

It’s a learning curve for everyone.  I’m liking watching our kids adjust to her and play with her.

A tired dog is a good dog. Here’s she’s chilling on the DIY Dog Bed I made for her. The boys sure have fun taking her outside and playing in the backyard with her.  Right now we have snow, makes for it being extra fun.

We can’t wait for summer when we go camping and most of the “puppy” stage will be passed and she will be we will all be well adjusted to each other.

Hope sharing our experience was helpful. Do you have a dog?

Are you planning on getting one?

If you came just for the puppy spam, your welcome.