knuckles and knugget

So, we got a PUPPY!

What led to a puppy? A lot, I tell you.

When my husband and I first met, we both had our own dogs. Mine was a two year old rescue dog that I adopted four months before meeting my husband; his dog was Knuckles, an 11 year old lab mix he'd had since she was six weeks old. Not long after I adopted my dog, she began exhibiting some troubling behavior. Troubling, as in, she was an extreme alpha female who wanted to kill other animals. Cats, other dogs. She attacked other people's pets when small children were present. It was bad. And it kept escalating. After her third attempt to take out my husband's dog - and by take out I mean latching onto the jugular and requiring activities I won't mention here to get her to release - I decided to have her evaluated by an animal behavioral specialist. The prognosis wasn't good. The specialist said in no uncertain terms that my dog's dominant behavior was considered extreme, she needed constant conditioning to try and subdue her, and that she should never live in a home where she might encounter other animals or small children.

Well, that wasn't going to work. Just look at the types of people in my life:

Adorable, right??? My life was full of little ones and it was going to be full of little ones for many years to come. It was time to give my dog the chance to be homed with a person that would let her be top dog. It was a very hard thing to do.

So, flash forward a year and we were married, we still had Knuckles, and we both wanted a puppy. But for some reason that I can't remember right now, we put it off for a few months. Probably something like busy schedules, or wanting to wait for things to calm down a bit. But things never calm down. I lost my job; I got a job but my husband left his job; home renovations; vacations; a death in the family; a few health scares; throw in a couple more job transitions... you get the picture, right? The economy and life in general made it pretty easy to put off adding a a puppy to our family. Why we trick ourselves into believing that there is a "good time" to completely disrupt life and throw a baby anything into it, I don't know. You just have to take the plunge.

So, flash forward another year, and here we are in Dahlonega. Still no puppy, but talk of a puppy had definitely ramped up. There was only one thing still coming between us and a puppy, and that was a one-week period when I would be on vacation with my family and my husband would be on a business trip. As soon as we were back, we would begin our search for the perfect wiggly, waggly, lickety-stickety puppy.

And that week came and went and we came home to something we didn't quite expect: our dog, Knuckles, acting like she'd just had the wind taken out of her sails. It worried us. What would a puppy do to our sweet old dog? We did the easiest things we could think of doing, and that was 1) take Knuckles to the vet and 2) decide once again to put off getting a puppy. It was sad. We were both ready for some fresh life to be breathed into our family dynamic.

And then, two weeks later, Kuckles was on some new medication and doing much better, and we were on a trip to the grocery store, and what did we find but a litter of adorable 8-week old puppies - right out front and ready for adoption. And this little face was sitting in a crate with four of her litter mates:

My husband and I danced around the Knuckles issue for about two minutes, and then he said something that really resonated with me. He said that waiting to get a puppy felt like we were just waiting for Knuckles to die. Yuck. That is exactly what it felt like. Sweet Knuckles. She's old, but she's not so old that we needed to be on a death watch; and deep down inside, we both wanted our good old girl to have an influence on a puppy. We wanted Knuckles to take part in training a puppy, with grand hopes that some of her Knuckleheadedness will rub off. So, after all of the delay, we decided to stop putting off what we said we had wanted to do for YEARS, and we brought home Knugget.

And of course, it's like our house has woken up. What a difference 20 pounds of puppy breath and puppy noises, puppy tails, puppy clumsiness and puppy eyes can make. No to mention puppy kisses, puppy discoveries, puppy toys. Even Knuckles has a renewed interest in Kong balls and tennis balls, and although Knuckles won't be enticed into wrestling matches, she does let Knugget kiss her face and sleep curled up in her belly.

And I know that Knuckles gets annoyed with Knugget's constant enthusiasm for all things, but, I'm pretty sure that's a smile I see on Knuckles's face.