A New Member of the Family

As if we weren't already busy enough with moving into a brand new house a few weeks back and preparing for our upcoming June wedding in Las Vegas, Lucas and I decided to throw more fun into the mix of life by getting Oliver a little brother. As most of you know, Oliver is our handsome 5 year old border collie/brittany spaniel, which means the newest member of the family is a new puppy.

Lucas and I have wanted a new puppy for a long time. We'd always put it off and said we'd wait until we had a house with lots of room and a backyard. Well now that we have a house with lots of room and a backyard, we started thinking again about adding to our family. We weren't sure exactly what we wanted, but we knew that we wanted a female (ha!) and that we wanted a small dog. To get some ideas, we visited a pet store in the area to browse. We really liked the look of some miniature schnauzer puppies we saw, and we were also considering miniature dachshunds now that my entire family seems to have one. We started browsing the classified ads and shelters and came across a family on the north side of town who had a litter of miniature schnauzers they were selling. We decided to meet the puppies and see how we felt. I should've known that once we got within range of puppies, we'd not be going home empty handed. We're such suckers.

From the very beginning when we first entertained the idea of getting a new puppy, we'd planned on getting a female. And then we met the little boy of the litter. Not only was he adorable, he was all white! He looked very different from his furry traditional salt 'n' pepper coloured sisters. The litter came rushing out to meet us, and we couldn't take our eyes off of the little male. He melted our hearts and we realized we were going home with a little brother for Oliver instead of a sister like we'd planned. Not everything happens as planned; Oliver was actually chosen under the same circumstances when I picked him out. I went in to the shelter with the intention of picking a female and instead came home with Oliver -- mostly for the same reasons we chose the white male schnauzer -- his colouring made him unique and just that much cuter. He absolutely stole our hearts.

We brought our new puppy home and introduced him to Oliver, who wasn't sure what to think at first. It took us a day to finally decide on a name, and we picked Winston. It just seems to fit! As a schnauzer he has a little beard, and our little guy's beard is white so we decided that only an old man kind of name would work. Oliver wasn't aggressive towards Winston, but he did try to avoid him for a few days. Thankfully Winston is incredibly laid back and calm, which complements Oliver very nicely. We've had Winston for a week now, and Oliver has finally warmed up to his new playmate. Oliver even plays tug-of-war with Winston! And typical of siblings, the younger one follows the older one around and wants to do everything that the older one does. Winston wants to be just like Oliver. (For all of our sakes, we sure hope that Oliver stays unique, lol.) And at first, Oliver didn't seem to be too keen on having a little shadow, but we've noticed over the last day or two that when Oliver realizes that Winston isn't following him around anymore, he misses him and goes to find out where he is. Oliver is incredibly social with people, but isn't very social with other dogs so it took him a few days to figure out HOW to play with Winston. Now that they are getting along, we can focus more on helping Oliver to lower his voice when he plays. Oliver is so much bigger and louder than Winston, but he's definitely improving and figuring out how to use his "indoor voice" when he plays with his little brother. They're really cute together when they get going!

This blog entry wouldn't be complete without pictures, and of course, we've taken loads of them. With our good digital camera gone, I've had to resort to the old icky one. It takes even ickier video clips, but I've put together some low res/low quality footage of Oliver and Winston playing together, too. You can see all of the pictures we've taken so far of our new family member HERE and check out the videos HERE and HERE. I've got a newer video that's a little better quality (Lucas' cell phone takes better video than a 6 year old digital camera), but I still need to convert the format and put it all together, so you may want to check out my videos to see when it's up. The photo page is updated as often as I can tear myself away from my boys to upload, and is constantly changing, so be sure to check back to see more. Wish us luck on housebreaking! ;)