Sunday, March 14, 2010

My Little Mickey

My family has a lot of birthdays in March and Mickey is one of them. She turned two years old on the 13th, I can't believe how big my little baby is!



Mickey was a total impulse purchase. At the time we were living in a one bedroom apartment that did not allow dogs. We were at Fashion Island in Newport Beach for lunch and decided to look at the pet store for fun. We saw Mickey chasing her litter mates and nipping their tails. We played with her and knew we had to have her. That was on a Saturday, the next Saturday we were already moving into our new dog friendly apartment. Yes, we bought a dog and then moved solely because of that dog into a much more expensive apartment. We are a little crazy. And we do feel guilty that we purchased Mickey from a store but we just loved her so much. Frank is a rescue dog and I always donate to the homeless pets when I shop at Petsmart. I think that makes it a little better, right?




I am really glad that we had the experience of raising a puppy before we have a baby. Not that raising a puppy is anything like raising a baby but it does lay some groundwork that I think a couple needs before attempting to raise a child together.





Raising a puppy taught Brady and I the necessity of working as a team. There are a lot of different approaches to dog training, we had to make the decision together as to how we would train her. And then we had to be consistent and on the same page or else our training just wouldn't work. We had to share the responsibility of making sure the dog had food, water, walks, and was healthy. We had to figure out how to discipline together and learn when things were just an accident. Mickey had a lot of health problems as a puppy, she had two eye surgeries before she was 6 months old, Brady and I learned to lean on each other when we were worried and scared about our little puppy.




Raising a puppy is not the easiest thing in the entire world. There were lots of times that I was just plain sick of cleaning up dog vomit and poop, replacing her dog bed for the millionth time, and having to get up in the middle of the night to take her out. But today Mickey is a relatively well-trained and very happy dog. And I feel good that Brady and I worked together as a team to raise her. This makes me very optimistic for our prospects as parents. I know a baby will be so very different from a puppy, but at least I know that Brady and I are capable of providing for a living thing. And I would like to note that I was the one that crate trained Mickey, which means that I was the one that got up in the middle of the night, every night for a month to let her outside. Which I think earns me a month off of getting up with the baby in the middle of the night.

1 comment:

  1. Great post I am POSITIVE that having a puppy before a baby makes the transition a bit easier.

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