We got a puppy.
It was not quite one year since we lost Frank. I deeply missed having a dog in the house, but we waited until everyone was ready. We decided to adopt a puppy instead of going through a rescue this time because I really struggled with Frankie’s past and not knowing so much about him, even his age. He had health issues – he came with a heart murmur that we knew about, and part of the reason we were selected to adopt him, because we had dealt with Henry’s heart.
I researched breeders in the area and narrowed it down to three, two schnauzer breeders and one who bred schnoodles.
When I was 13 we got a schnoodle. It was a fairly new breed than, and Daphne was our first family dog – we had owned cats as far back as my memory goes, Marilla was there was I was born.
(Yes, my mother had two cats named Marilla and Matthew, Matthew either died or ran away before I was born).
When we adopted Henry in 2005, I tried to correct a lot of mistakes we had made with the Daph.
Daphne was a miniature schnoodle who weighed 28 lbs when she died. She knew the sound of the cheese container coming out of the fridge. Daph didn’t do much training and didn’t know other dogs, she wasn’t very good at recall and every member of the family fed her anything all the time. She died at age 10 after the vet told us she was going to do downhill fast.
Henry did not eat people food – our rule was that if something dropped on the floor he could have it if he got to it first. He didn’t have dog friends, but he had many people that he loved. He could go happily off leash at the dog park and come back to us, and he would do the usual sniffing and greeting. He was my cuddle dog. He was the best boy and losing him brought on some of the deepest grief I’ve experienced. He told us it was his time when he slowed down and stopped eating, and it came at the beginning of 2019, the year after we lost both my Gramps and my father-in-law. The hits kept coming.
When Henry died the house had never felt more quiet. I was working from home while the kid was at school and Joe was at work and I deeply missed the company. I quickly started looking at rescue sites and the local Humane Society and I found Frankie.
Frankie was from Colombia. He had been living on the streets, was brought to a farm and then flew to Canada. Frankie did not socialize – he would get very excited to see other dogs and that excitement came out in menacing growls. He hated the snow. He ate everything he could get his paws on – including tearing open garbage bags and eating rotten meat.
Frankie came home just two months after we lost Henry, which was probably definitely too soon, but we did our best for him. Frankie’s death was very sudden and shocking. He had two seizures in one day. It was like going from 0 to 100. We had a dog and then next day we didn’t.
And so, after Frank, we waited a bit.
We chose the schnoodles. The breeder looked really good and had good reviews, you could see the love they had for the dogs. We got on a waiting list and waited.
A litter of nine puppies was born at the beginning of April, we went to select our puppy on Father’s Day. He chose us. They had dubbed him George, but we renamed him Mr. Aloysius Snuffleupagus – Guss for short. Much like Henry licked my nose and made me fall in love, 20 years later Gus did the same to the kid.
He is a bigger dog than we’ve had before – a mix of standard schnauzer and miniature poodle. Henry was a consistent 16.8 lbs and Gus has already hit 25 lbs at six months old.
We are learning from mistakes and missteps with Gus. We have worked with a trainer, we focused on consistency. He goes to daycare and plays with other dogs regularly. He’s a very good boy, a very clever boy. He wants to learn, he wants to play, he wants to be loved.
Having a new puppy for the first time in 20 years, we knew it would be hard. It’s like having a newborn. Gus has certainly challenged us, and we haven’t done everything well. There are things to work on, but we should have years and years of Gus.