Take me Home

I have grown up with animals so having them around is just part of life. My grandmother - who lives with us - barely tolerates animals, so living with us must be challenging. And after returning our 3 year old dog to the breeder that we had for the last eight months (a story in itself) we've been on the hunt for a new dog to add to our family.

We brought home Chase last Saturday from a PetSmart adoption event and what a little love he is. They think he's part lab, part Boxer, but I don't really care at this point because he's sweet and he plays with the kids.

We had been toying around with buying a puppy from a breeder but the more I looked at the hundreds of dogs looking for homes from shelters and rescue groups, well, it just didn't seem right. Chase is the third animal we've adopted from a shelter - the first two were cats and they seem a little miffed that we saw fit to bring Chase into our family.

But having a puppy around is like having a new baby, and since he wasn't really crate trained, it's been a sleepless few nights as we try to get him used to sleeping in the crate. He would probably be quite content to sleep on the end of the bed but I have two issues with that -

1) We don't really know how big he's gonna get and
2) I'd rather not wake up in the middle of the night to find him peeing on the bed.

Ya know what I mean?

Two of my kids are old enough to be a big help - taking him out back and all of that. The third one, well, I'm just trying to teach her to leave the poor dog alone.

Check here for the animals that need a home in your area.