Puppy!  This is Brooks.  He’s the newest member of our family, and we already love him to pieces.  He is six and a half weeks old with all of the characteristics of a puppy that you would expect.  He plays hard, crashes hard, and he is quite a little snuggle bug.

Ryan has been talking about getting a puppy for awhile now.  I continually said that we should wait until after his transplant, but I have grown tired of using that excuse. This summer, we have avoided family vacations, visits to Pennsylvania, and we are unable to commit to anything too far in the future out of concern that “the call” might come and it won’t be convenient for us to get to the hospital in Cincinnati within the time frame we are given.  Living this way has become about as normal as it possibly can, but the puppy topic continued to come up in conversation. So, I finally agreed on one condition, which was that if we got a puppy, I wanted one that I could train to run with me.

After a lot of research, we decided on a Vizsla.  This is a breed that was rescued from Hungary during WWII.  They are excellent runners, great with kids, and nicknamed the “velcro dog” because they are so in love with their owners.  After having Brooks for just three days, he has already lived up to that nickname.  He loves to be wherever we are, and when he sleeps at least one part of his body has to be against you or on you.

We kept Brooks a secret from the kids up until Friday when we drove to Ohio to pick him up.  Lily came along for the ride while Rydan was at school.  Lily has had suspicions of a new puppy because she has been along for every trip to PetSmart to purchase various items in preparation for Brooks. Every time we bought something, I told her that it was a Christmas gift for Lola’s dogs, (my mom), which surprisingly satisfied her curiosity. Even when we put up a special gate with a small cat door to keep the puppy out of the laundry room where we keep Louie’s litter and food, the kids bought our little fib about the need for installing the gate.  Rydan had remained completely in the dark up until he got home from school on Friday.  They both adore their new little friend, and are really enjoying his playfulness.

As for Louie, he is not exactly impressed by Brooks, but he isn’t threatened either.  He tends to watch from a close distance, and if Brooks gets too close, Louie’s hiss lets him know to back off.  We’ve actually been a little surprised at how uninterested Brooks is in Louie, which I suppose is a good thing.  Brooks seems to say “I’ll play with you if you’ll let me, but if not, I’ll find something else to terrorize.”

This was the initial introduction.  Louie decided to take a closer look while Brooks was napping.  He simply sniffed around a bit and then went on his way.  Clearly, Louie knows he is king of the house, and he isn’t about to let a puppy threaten his reign.  They’ve had a few stare downs, where Louie always wins because Brooks cowers away after a few seconds.  The two of them did actually touch noses yesterday, and then calmly walked away in opposite directions.

So, that’s our big surprise.  I’m sure we’ll have lots more to share about our new puppy, so stay tuned!  He is definitely quite a handful, but he does provide us with a lot of comic relief, and he is such a little lover.