The Time Has Come…

It appears I will be getting a golden retriever puppy from the breeder I want. The litter is due on January 29th and as some people dropped off the waiting list I got bumped up from the reserve list. The new litter, provided they arrive on time, will be ready to go to their new homes by about first of April.

As excited as I am about finally getting a new puppy, I have to admit there is that gut clenching nervousness I had forgotten about at the thought of taking on a new bundle of fur and realizing you are responsible for this living, breathing thing for the course of its natural life. Its health and well-being now rests in my hands. Ack…

I know once the pup arrives the nervousness will subside and I’ll fall back into the grove of dog ownership and re-juggle my schedule to fit in the walks and the feedings and the training, but until then, every now and then I feel the anxiety of what I’m doing. I’ve never been one of these people that rushes into buying a puppy because their so damn cute you just have to have one. Maybe its because I firmly believe the reason puppies are so damn cute is because it’s often the only thing that saves them during that crazy stage when they are learning it isn’t okay to eat your furniture or gnaw on the baseboard or run through the backyard with your skivvies trailing from their teeth.

What puppydom is really is a lot of work. A lot. There’s the regular exercise the dog requires, the housebreaking, the training so you have a well behaved dog, the incorporating it into your life as a member of the family and not sloughing off your responsibility just because you’d like the day off. It will be making sure there are dog-sitters if you want to go away, and vet visits and pooper scooping (ah yes…pooper scooping…the glamorous side of dog ownership).

Most of all it will mean a curtailing of the freedom you have when you don’t own a pup that is sitting at home waiting for you to return. I can’t run out after work and go somewhere. I will need to get home pronto because there is a dog waiting there that needs to be let out, fed and walked. The lunch time gym workouts will have to stop at least for the first 6 months since I’ll have to zip home and lunch and let the poor guy out for a pee break and midday feeding. Which means figuring out just when the gym will be fit in…later in the evening? Weekends? A walk in the morning before I leave for work is also a necessity, how will I fit that in with my morning writing schedule? Get up at 5:30 am?? Oiy…

Sigh…this would be so much easier if I only worked part-time…

But despite all of the nervousness and changes that taking on a new pup hold, there is a much bigger part of me that can’t wait to once again have a pooch meandering around the house. Despite the curtailed freedom, I never regretted a day of it when I had Cooper, and I know once I get into the groove again I won’t regret it this time. The pay offs are so much more than the time you hand over to them.

Now, if I could only come up with a name for the pooch...