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The Adventures of Zoey: Our New Puppy

Life with a new puppy.


I adore animals. Yet, I will admit though I have an affinity to cats. It is hard not to when I was brought home as a new born baby into a home with my mom’s cat that she had for nearly 20 years. I was of secondary status in Miss Lulu’s mind. After she sadly passed, and years of begging my parents for another kitty, we finally brought home another and then two more.

When I started graduate school and was living on my own, I immediately went and brought home my sweet, fluffy, beautiful Siberian Annabelle. And for 4.5 years we were very happy together, just the two of us… until I met my now husband.

He grew up with cats and dogs, so I knew pretty quickly, a dog would eventually be in our lives. Sure enough, 7 months into our marriage, we got a dog. We brought home a very cute white fluffy English Cream Golden Retriever puppy that we named, Zoey.

My stipulation, he is in charge of training, especially potty training. Well, here we are, 10 weeks in, and who is taking on most of the responsibility?! Me! I should have seen that one coming. At least, I get most of the love… and not so desirable puppy teething bites.

Fortunately, this new fur-baby allows for a bright spot in this whole COVID-19 quarantine life. We have the encouragement and responsibility that gets us to go out everyday for walks and puppy socializing, social distance style of course. This really means, taking her out to go potty and meet other dogs and humans to learn to interact, while us humans stay far apart and wear our stylish masks. It also means, she gets lots of baths.

Having her has been a challenge and also a delight. One of our favorite moments was getting to do a photo-shoot with her. We figured, the puppy stage only lasts so long, we might as well capture it while we can as a family. We did leave the cat at home, which I am sure she was very appreciative of.



Our very talented friend, Melanie of Melanie Knaster Photography, took these pictures for us. This was such a fun time for us. She had the perfect spot where Zoey could run free. Not too far from our home is Glendale Farms Open Space, a lovely little walking path that also has a massive dog park enclosure. We have since gone back multiple times and recommend this park to all of our friends.

Setting aside this time for us to take these photos was so meaningful. Brining this new pet into our lives as a newly married couple created a journey that we will be on together. Capturing that change allows us to be mindful of this adventure and relish in the excitement. To be able to raise her, care for her, and teach her has been a blessing. Especially, seeing how happy Cody is to have a furry companion to keep him company while parting in Zoom meeting, writing his dissertation, and going on runs, makes all the difficult moments (i.e. indoor potty accidents) worth it. I am so excited to see what will come next for us.

Side note: Our future efforts will be to get her and Annabelle to be best friends. In time this will happen, and once I can get some good photos I will post and update.




xoxo,

Shana Bryn




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