Little Red

We have a new four-legged family member!

Little Red

On Saturday morning, we picked up our new puppy, and I am already in love with him.  Little Red is so nicknamed because he is an 8.6 lb red standard poodle puppy.  He is our third standard poodle and our fourth poodle, as we began our life with poodles back in the 80’s with a miniature apricot-colored poodle when our kids were small.  Our first standard was Big Ol’ Baby, apricot-colored, who passed away back in October after being a beloved family member for 15 years, and our second standard poodle is Girly Girl, who is now 2 1/2 and is light brown, almost a taupe color.  Color is not that important to us, but we think it will be neat to have a red dog for the first time.  Red is a relatively new color for this breed, and his parents were both gorgeous.

Over the course of our married years, we have also fostered a few dogs that have lived with us for shorter periods of time, and all were strays that we took in until we found good homes for them.  The most recent foster was Charlie, a sweet and feisty beagle who hit the jackpot as far as a permanent home a few years ago.  I actually fell in love with him and wanted to keep him, but when a good home with some people that we knew personally came open, we decided to let him go to them and get Girly Girl.  This couple was absolutely devastated after losing their long-time pet, and Charlie has been living like a king with them ever since.  It was a good decision, and we still enjoy getting pictures of him from time to time.

Little Red passed his puppy check with flying colors, and right away, he started doing his business out in the backyard regularly.  It seems that the breeder has already done some work with the puppies, as this is the easiest puppy transition we’ve ever had, at least so far.  Little Red had a rough night of separation anxiety on his first night on Saturday night, but last night was a completely different story, as he slept from 10:30 pm to 6:00 am in his crate without an accident.  He also has no fear of Girly Girl, and she has been good to play with him gently most of the time, with only a few reminders from us to “be easy” on occasion.  It’s so good to see her back to her level of play that she had before we lost Big Ol’ Baby, and I’m sure these two will enjoy many fun times together over the years.

We will be keeping Little Red at home and inside as much as possible until mid-March when he completes his final round of shots.  Both the breeder and our vet insist on doing this to hopefully avoid any unnecessary sickness, especially Parvo, which is deadly and, unfortunately, is very prevalent right now.  This means no weekend RV trips for a while for us, but this time frame actually works well for us, since hubby is out of vacation days until the first week of March anyway.  Girly Girl has grown up going with us in the RV, since we purchased our motor home shortly after she came to live with us.  She loves going camping, and I’m sure Little Red will love it just as much, too.  I’ve never met a kid or a dog that didn’t love to go camping, and having the RV makes it easy to bring the dogs along for the fun.

No doubt, Little Red will likely be nicknamed Big Red in a few short months, as he should be about six to eight inches taller than Girly Girl at the shoulders and the largest dog we have ever owned.  I’m not going to wish away these puppy days, though.  For people like us that have large dogs, the privilege of just being able to hold a dog in your lap for a few short weeks is a very special time, for sure.  Little Red likes to cuddle in the evenings just before bedtime, and I’m going to definitely take advantage of that as long as possible.

I’m very grateful today for the blessing of a new puppy, as well as the special love of so many wonderful dogs over the years.  I highly recommend sharing the love of a dog (or two) in your life.

Edit: WordPress informed me that this is also my 100th blog post.  How fun is that! 😉

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