Well, we finally caved. After being begg
ed for years and several comments like “When Dad and Ryan die, can we get a dog?” Cassidy got her way and we brought home a little puppy. Buddy (which happens to be his name, as of publication) is a yorkie-poo. That means he’s half Yorkie and half poodle. He is tiny, darling and black as black can be. He will only grow to be 10- 12 pounds. The kids, (yes, even Ryan) are loving having a dog. They have even remembered to thank us several times since we brought him home.
The pursuit of a dog began as a pursuit for a small animal, like a hamster or gerbil, but I just couldn’t see myself trying to catch the little rodent, if or rather, when it escaped out of it’s cage. I was seriously looking at guinea pigs. In fact, Cassidy and I went to the pet store to check out the guinea pigs. The guinea pigs at the pet store were HUGE!! I didn’t want cage something so pig. Then we saw Buddy. Buddy was the same size as the guinea pig. He was so cute and seemed rather mellow.
We went home and told Nathan 
and Ryan about the dog we saw. They wanted to see it too, so back to the pet store we went. We had Ryan and Nathan hold the dog then touch their faces so we could see if they had any allergic reaction. (Yorkies and Poodles are known to be good non-allergenic dogs) We left and waited several hours with no reaction from either of them. At that point Cassidy was sold – as if she wasn’t before. After much consideration we decided this was the dog for us.
Nathan and I were very concerned about Buddy’s first night in our home. We had lots of thoughts of the first few nights with a new baby. But 
surprisingly, Buddy went to sleep around 11:00 pm and didn’t want to get up when we woke up at 6:00 am. Cassidy on the other hand didn’t go to sleep until 2:30am. She kept coming downstairs to see if Buddy was awake. It was worse than Christmas Eve for her. I have to admit I am surprised at how willing the kids have been to help. The poor dog can’t get a minute alone. But he loves the attention and follows everyone around like a little shadow. (another name we considered)
