For a while we’ve been discussing getting a dog. We both grew up with them, but having one of our
own had been an impossibility with us both working full time. Then, since I’ve been on sick leave, my
mobility, or rather lack of, has been the stumbling block. Several times in the last year, or 18 months,
we’ve been tempted by rescue dogs but the timing hasn’t felt quite right. Until now.
It’s only been in the last couple of months, maybe even less, that even
on a bad day healthwise, I am still able to get out of the house and walk for a
few minutes. It may only be five or six,
but I can walk a little way up the road and back. A start.
If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know all about my
struggles with my weight and body issues over recent months. What better motivation to keep exercising,
push me to get out of the house when the fatigue is strangling me, than a
dog. The more I thought about it, the
more sense it made, until a faint idea became a longing. This was the answer to the problem – a canine
physio!
The next question was whether we’d find a dog that could
cope with the little walking that I can do at the moment. One answer was to adopt a rescue dog that was
used to very little exercise, but in most cases, the dog would also be elderly
bringing with it the risk of health problems and emotional heartache in the not
too distant future.
Originally, the last thing in the world I thought we should
do was get a puppy, but actually in a lot of ways it made sense: it would fit
into our lifestyle as it would know nothing else; I could exercise it easily by
playing in the house or the garden to supplement the walking I could manage;
the cats might adapt more easily to something more their size; we could choose
what breed, colour, gender we wanted; we would know it’s past history rather
than stepping into the unknown with a dog that had been rehomed. And I’ve since found out that you shouldn’t
over-walk small puppies – five minutes for each month of their age, maybe even
split into two walks a day. A month to
be able to build up an extra five minutes at a time. This was sounding more like something that
might just be feasible. Of course there
are the downsides, housetraining in the pouring rain, risks of
chewing/destroying possessions/the house, the time commitments etc…. but let’s
gloss over those bits for the moment.
Lots of conversations followed about how it would fit into
our daily routines, reassurance for Matt that I could cope with it on my own on
week days, then gradually over the space of another couple of weeks, breed,
colour, and gender. Having been
granted permission, Once Matt and I came to a mutual decision, I called and
spoke to a couple of Kennel Club registered breeders. Then off we set last Sunday morning to visit
a litter. All the way there in the car
we were still rationalising various scenarios, how would we manage on days I
had London hospital appointments, did we want the commitment - we would no
longer be able to stay the night with friends after a night out as we had the
night before, could I definitely manage the walking, did I have the energy for
training, being on constant call for trips into the garden, trying to satisfy
ourselves that we’d thought of every last detail.
We walked through the breeders’ front door and into her
utility room and there were nine roly-poly black standard schnauzer
puppies. We stood and chatted for well
over an hour and a half watching them playing, sleeping, clambering over each other,
both totally mesmerised. Matt and I
looked at each other and grinned, both nodding, refused the offer of time to
think about it further (we’d done enough of that over the previous couple of
weeks) left a deposit cheque, and arranged to go back in three weeks’ time to
select the one we wanted.
We walked back to the car, arms around each other, with
beaming smiles, drunk with excitement.
We found our way back to the M25, and then on towards Chertsey. Matt had been looking at changing his car,
scouring Autotrader every day since before Christmas. There were a couple that fitted the criteria
at a garage near Weybridge, so when we knew we were seeing the puppies only 30
minutes or so away, we decided to go and have a look.
As it was lunchtime, we parked in Chertsey and found a
really nice gastro-style pub for some food.
All we could talk about was what we needed to buy for the new arrival,
when would be the best time to pick him up, feeding regimes, training ideas,
where his bed would go etc – you get the picture, we were as high as kites with
it all.
At which point, Matt said he wasn’t sure about looking at
the cars now, our heads were too full of puppy thoughts to get into car buying
mode, and besides we might be pushing it to be back in time for the Spurs kick
off at 4:00….. With a little bit of
cajoling, and even offering to forgo pudding to save some time (treacle tart
with homemade icecream!!!!!), I persuaded Matt that we should at least have a
walk round the cars as we were only five minutes from the garage, so off we
set.
Nevertheless, a couple of hours later, after thorough
examinations, a test drive, some good negotiation, lots of paperwork, we put a
deposit down on a car and agreed to collect it the following Saturday.
We drove away in stunned silence followed by hysterical
laughter, both totally dazed and rather shaky.
This continued for the rest of the journey home, and actually, for the
rest of the day, we were utterly shell-shocked. Any thoughts of pasta making
went out the window - Matt cooked fishcakes from the freezer whilst I lay on
the sofa in a daze, unable to string a coherent sentence together. For two people who will do anything to avoid
making decisions, we’d made two huge ones in the space of three or four hours,
one large financial commitment, the other enormous amounts of emotion and time. What a day we’d had!!
We picked up the car on Saturday, and so far it’s
great. Now just another three weeks to
wait until we can bring the puppy home.
It feels like forever! There are no photos yet - I can't believe we didn't take any, but there will be PLENTY to make up for that, I promise! And for the next decision, what are we going to call him? Answers on a postcard (or in the comments section below)!
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