Dog Diaries #1

The Beginning...

Welcome to the beginning of a new adventure in our house. It started on August 28, 2023, when I received a text from my daughter saying her boss brought a puppy into work. My daughter sent me pictures and asked if we could adopt him...

Let's roll back the tape a bit. 

We currently have a five year old Yellow Labrador named Keefer. Keefer was a busy puppy. He got into everything. He wanted to eat everything. He was a handful. He wasn't a bad dog, just a busy dog. He didn't like to be left alone and he would howl to the heavens at night. My daughter would sit in his pen with him at night until he fell asleep. He didn't like to go outside alone...and he still doesn't, lol. We thought Keefer would lose the 'puppyness' once he was neutered, but nope, he was still crazy. Keefer didn't actually mature until he turned three, and let me tell you, those were three long years. Don't get me wrong...I love Keefer and he's my baby, even at one-hundred pounds. He's a great dog. It was just a long process to get there.

I said I never wanted a puppy again. I love dogs and I would welcome another dog someday, but I would adopt one that was at least a year old.

Fast forward to August 28.

I told my daughter that puppies were a lot of work and a big responsibility. I tried my best to stay firm to not wanting a puppy. Then she told me his story. He was adopted from a man who we believe owned the mother. The family who adopted him had two young children who were mentally challenged. I'm not sure why this family thought a rambunctious puppy would be a good idea. The children were pulling and picking at the puppy and he started nipping at them, which dogs will do to defend themselves. It's their natural instinct as is with most animals. The family decided to get rid of the puppy. My daughter's boss is a friend of the family and took the puppy, but she wasn't able to keep him. As well, the man who owned the puppy was a fisherman and out fishing for the next several weeks. My daughter fell for this cute puppy, as did I. I couldn't see him go to a shelter or to someone who might mistreat him, but were we ready to go through the puppy stage all over again?

Fast forward a few days to August 30, 2023.

From the first photo above, it's obvious we adopted the puppy. And here he is.

This is Midnight Rambler, but we call him Rambler for short. 

When we got him, the family had called him Loki, but my daughter's boss called him Pugsley. We decided to stick with our Rolling Stones theme. Keefer is after Keith Richards (Keef is the nickname that Mick Jagger calls Keith). And we also had a Jagger (our yellow lab before Keefer). I wanted to call him Charlie Watts, but Midnight Rambler seemed a little more fitting for this little pup.

Rambler is a Cane Corso (pronounced Can-nay). The family didn't seem to know when he was born, only that he was seven weeks old when they got him. The fisherman was unreachable, so we are unsure of his actual date of birth. I did some research and judged his age by his baby teeth and according to when they fell out and his adult teeth came in, he was born the first week of July. I'm going to pick a date so that we have a day to celebrate his birthday.

There is so much more of Rambler's story to tell, but I'm going to pause and share our up-and-down journey in a series of posts. Coming soon will be a post about our first few days of being new puppy owners!