Monday, January 11, 2010

Coco Chanel and Trad Pets

I tend to lean toward the conservative side of life for most things.  That would include pets.  If there is such a thing as a trad or preppy pet.  I'm sure TWA over at "Are you a preppie?" would be able to tell us.

Anyway - growing up we pretty much stuck with Black Labs, Beagles and the occasional Basset Hound.  We did have a German Shepard once too. Oh - and a medium sized poodle brought home after the vet made a call to my soft hearted mother when it's owners wanted it put down because it barked too much.  The poodle not my mother. (My soft hearted mother is another story).  May favorite pet as a young adult was a Beagle/Terrier mix.  We bought a new hunting dog and the breeder gave us the runt for free.  It seems a male Terrier got mixed up with the female Beagle - but that's for biology class.  She was marked like a Beagle but had fur like a Terrier.  My father thought it would be funny to be tromping around hunting yelling for "Rosebud".  So she was named!  She truly was a great dog.  She eventually passed of old age and never did hunt. 

So time passes - I married my wife and we had decided not to have pets right away.  Well as fate would have it, we got pregnant and got our first dog the same year.  A Springer Spaniel named Audrey.  Actually her AKC name was Audrey's Little Princess.  Not given by me but by the original owner (another long story).  A few years later we found out the local dog catcher had found a White West-highland Terrier.  We named her Maggie.

Maggie and Audrey left us both the same year. Audrey one January morning and Maggie on a September afternoon.  At that point we decided we had enough with pets.  We still had "Boo" the black cat and Tommy the Turtle who turned out to be a Thomasina.

So where is all this leading - well that soft hearted mother of mine decided that our daughter needed another fuzzy bundle of joy.  Thanksgiving, 2008 -  I receive a call from said mother:

"I'm in big trouble."

"Why - whats wrong?"

"I went to check out the dog I told you about and decided I couldn't leave it with the breeder."

So - a little 1lb ball of fur was looking at us through the door of a portable kennel.  It turned out to be a toy version of a Phantom Poodle.


So what's conservative/trad about a poodle - nothing unless your daughter names it Coco Chanel.

Coco is now just over 1 year old, and weighs in at a whopping 5 pounds if she's been eating a lot.  I have to admit that having a small dog is very convenient for a change.  She eats less, poops less and is much easier to scoop up to travel with.

DAG

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