It's Andy Fish!

I absolutely did not go to bed on a Sunday night expecting to adopt a dog the next day– but that’s what happened.

We lost our Australian Silk Terrier, Austin, on Inuguaration day 2024 and we’ve not had a dog since then. Over a year, well over a year. I started looking at breeders near me and the going rate for a Yorkshire Terrier or the much harder to find Australian Silk Terrier is $1200 – $3200 with some even asking $5k. That’s a lot of scratch for a dog, and it also means a lot of puppy training.

I keep up with the Worcester Animal Rescue League, I even go up and either donate money or walk a dog from time to time, they are literally a ten minute walk from my house. On Sunday night I saw pics posted of this particular dog and made a note to get up there to at least meet him/her (all dogs are boys in my mind, cats are girls).

That morning I had a conversation with a breeder in CT who had a Yorkie available who was six months old, and since he was an older dog she was offering him for the very reasonable price of $1200.

First of all, her english was not great, or I should say her grammar was not great, and I really don’t love that.

Second, when I asked her if the puppy had been house trained she replied that yes he uses “pee pee pads” inside the house. The problem I have there is that when you get a dog you need to teach them that going inside the house is never ok, because a dog often can’t distinguish between a pee pad and a rug– it’s lazy training and I would have to extend significant effort to break him of that habit.

I didn’t think I’d be interested in the pound dog– she was described as extremely shy needing to be given her own space and time to adjust to new people, and she was 16lbs which doesn’t sound very big until you realize I’m used to a 10lb dog– you can carry a 10lb dog around, you can lug a 16lb dog around for a few minutes.

We got up there early and they were open for business, a nice young woman helped us and soon we were walking the dog outside. She was very shy at first, refusing to take treats from us, or even smelling our hands, but as we all walked around she got more and more comfortable to the point that the clerk left us alone to continue walking her and to let us discuss our thoughts.

As soon as it was just the three of us Juno came right over to me, licked my hand and face and walked perfectly on the leash. It all seemed like the right thing to do.

So we’re back to having slightly less freedom but the ticker ticker of little paws on the wood floors.

Welcome Juno!