Meet Ms. Sally: pickin up the pup*

Back at the beginning of June, we decided to get a dog.  Where we live is pet friendly, especially our apartment.  We are on the bottom floor with two sliding glass doors leading to a small yard area behind our place and our apartment is tiled throughout, making this an ideal place to train a puppy.  Tile=easy cleanup for messes.  So we researched dog breeds for a good while.  Originally Randal wanted a German Shepherd because of a childhood dog he loved, and while I wasn't set on a specific type I just knew that I didn't want a lot of hair everywhere.  We decided that German Shepherds were going to be too big because we don't have a house and won't for quite some time.  After checking craigslist religiously for about a month, we saw a miniature schnauzer puppy and Randal remembered a friend growing up that bred them and how much he loved them.  After reading about them being hypoallergenic, low shedding dogs with a large dog personality in a small dog body, we were sold.

We ended up finding some puppies we liked and drove about 3 hours in a Texas thunderstorm to check them out.  Sally and her brother were all that were left and we chose her because she was a little bit smaller and I prefer girl dogs.  They were wild things when we first met them, like Thing 1 and Thing 2.  We picked her up to take her and she knew she was leaving, immediately she started drooling nervously.  I'm talking buckets, not just a small amount of drool.  Driving home we needed to pick up some dog necessities and before we could stop at the petsmart 5 minutes away from her home, she threw up all over me.  So we brought her inside and she and I were both covered in dog throw up so while Randal gathered supplies, I tried to clean her up.  She just got more and more nervous and the drool got worse.  We ended up leaving after buying only dog shampoo and gathering some paper towels for the long car ride home.  Somewhere during the drive, Randal asked me what we should name our new drooler.  Without really thinking, the name "Sally Sassafrass" popped out half jokingly.  Randal affecionately refers to me as Sally Sassafrass, and is known to say, "Don't be such a sally" when people are being wimpy.  So that is how we got the name.  

Still knowing that we needed to get food, dog bowls, a bed, a leash etc. we stopped at the Walmart by our apartment and Randal ran in while I sat in the car and just loved on her.  During the drive she had tossed her cookies 3x and had an accident.  Lucky us.  After 45 minutes, Randal finally emerged with a shopping cart full to the top with dog "essentials".  He told me that while he was in the store he went for the off brand dog food, "Old Roys" but thought instead, "no, only the best for our dog" and went and grabbed the Purina puppy chow instead.  ha  Among the spoils were a few dog toys that apparently would be "good for her teeth".    Mmmmmhhmmmm.  We brought her home, snuggled her and let her get comfortable in her new surroundings.  That first night she slept in the bathroom and didn't make so much as a peep all night.  We were proud pup parents.  

Such a little baby

Relaxing on her dog pillow with her Spongebob. 

*I realize that most people won't care to hear the FULL story on how we got out pup, but that's the beauty of these blogs, it's all about what interests me.

So just enjoy the cute pictures instead.