How could you not love this face?

The dog breeder is great about posting photos and videos of their new puppies online. Before we decided to get a dog, I spent countless hours staring at Forest photos and watching videos of him playing with his litter-mates. I may have become a little addicted. After finding me glued to my computer again, watching a doggy video for the zillionth time, Nick finally said "Screw it, let's just get the puppy." *Sniff* those were words I was waiting to hear (especially since I was too much of a pansy to make a final decision on the matter).

Here are some of the first photos I ever saw of Forest.

"Come on, you know you want to buy me!"

"I'm the adorable, cuddly puppy you always wanted!"

My checkbook didn’t stand a chance.

How could you not love this face?

The Adorable Carry-On

There was a seemingly endless waiting period (about 1 week) between the first phone call with the breeder's when we made a verbal contract to become Forest's new parents, and that wonderful Saturday morning when we brought the puppy home for the first time. I spent most of that week buying dog supplies and freaking out. Although Nick was very emotionally supportive, he was of no physical help during this shopping extravaganza, mostly because he was out of town that week on business. But when he was back in town, he refused to enter a pet store like PetSmart or PetCo because of the whole dog-allergies-might-kill-him detail. Whatever, after researching dog breeds and agonizing over this decision for almost two years, I was more than eager to take on all shopping responsibilities.

A slight distinction for non-dog folks out there: a dog crate and a dog carrier are usually two different items. While a dog crate is used for sleeping and potty training, a dog carrier is used for, you guessed it, carrying the dog. A little puppy has little legs and gets tired easily, so you end up carrying him around a lot. Plus puppies are susceptible to a lot of diseases when they're young, so sometimes you want to take a puppy to a public area but don't want him to run around where he could get infected. Thus, a need for a dog carrier.

Of all the doggy products and accessories I bought, the dog carrier was by far the most difficult item to pick out. Seems simple, right? Just find a small bag with handles and/or strap to carry a puppy around in. I also envisioned carrying Forest onto an airplane one day, so the bag had to meet FDA size regulations. Although most of the bags I found technically met the before-mentioned criteria, they were also either pink or sparkly or had "Sassy Bitch" written on the side. Not really Nick's style.

After searching the internet and visiting several stores, I finally found a plain black bag with mesh sides and both top and side zipper openings. It was the perfect carrier for baby Forest.

Little puppy curled up for a nap in his carrier.

Forest loved playing in his carrier and would often strategically place numerous toys in or next to the carrier for immediate access.

 The puppy also loved to chew on the carrier. We considered ourselves very lucky because Forest rarely chewed on anything, so we allowed him this one indulgence.

But soon came the day when the carrier was no longer necessary.  Forest has received all of his shots and vaccines so we don't need to worry about isolating him. And although Forest will never been a marathon runner, he can take long walks and doesn't need to be carried any more. So for the last few months, the dog carrier has been locked away in the basement…until this week.

While planning an upcoming trip to Colorado to visit my folks, I started thinking about maybe taking Forest with me. I'm going to fly, and hate the idea of Forest suffering in the luggage compartment, so this trip would require carrying the puppy on the plane. Yay! I just so happened to have bought the perfect carrier less than a year ago. So earlier this week I dug out the carrier to double-check the dimensions before booking my flight.

Carrier size vs. Southwest regulations -> close call but I think the carrier could have fit under the seat. However, Carrier size vs. Full-Grown Doggy size -> no question, Forest is the champ.

The Adorable Carry-On

Fuzzy Photo of the Day

The first photo I ever took of our little puppy. 

Fuzzy Photo of the Day

Stuffed Puppy - * Updated*

After we officially decided to adopt Forest, we had to wait a few weeks before we could meet the little guy and bring him home. During this time I quickly entered crazy-puppy-lady mode and was probably really annoying to be around. Every day I looked at the photos and videos that the breeder had posted online. I downloaded as much as I could to my cell phone and was constantly sharing them with all of my friends and coworkers.

I think it was this photo that first elicited the comment, "Whoa, your dog looks like a stuffed animal."

 And I was all like, "No he doesn-holy crap he kinda does."

Since then, Forest has been compared to a stuffed animal several times, usually by kids (which I think legitimizes the claim as I consider children to be experts on stuffed animals).

Update: Someone asked what Forest is stuffed with. Nick and I unanimously agree that the answer is poop.

Stuffed Puppy - * Updated*

Forest-Sized Puppy

In my Mystery Puppy post, I explained that Nick’s severe pet allergies limited the types of dogs that we could adopt. We discovered that F1B poodle mixes are very hypoallergenic, so we did a lot of research on different types of poodle puppies. Nick declared that we could only get a dog that he wouldn’t be embarrassed walking around with in public, so that eliminated small mixes like Cockapoos. We finally narrowed our options down to Labradoodles and Goldendoodles.

Unfortunately F1B puppies are not as common as their F1 cousins. We came across a few places in other states that had F1B puppies for sale but we felt weird having a puppy “shipped” to us. Finally we found a breeder somewhat close to us in Missouri (seriously, what did we ever do before the internet? Yellow pages were useless).

The breeders were extremely nice and really seemed to care about their dogs, but they had an unusual policy about not letting potential owners meet the puppies before buying them. They explained that there are serious canine diseases that are very easy to spread and can kill entire litters (I’ll talk more about those diseases in a future post), so they didn’t want to chance losing their puppies. They tried to compensate for this policy by posting lots of photos and YouTube videos online so we could see what the puppies looked like and some of their personalities.

Nick and I didn’t like this policy, but we also didn’t really have any other options at that point. Plus we figured that if Forest didn’t work out then we’d have to say goodbye to the possibility of ever finding a dog that wouldn’t kill Nick. So we decided what the hell, we’ll just get a puppy and be done with it (those actually might have been Nick’s exact words, I think he was getting irritated by my constant puppy chatter).

The breeder’s litter at the time just happened to be F1B mini goldendoodles, and they estimated that Forest would grow to be about 20 to 25 pounds. I couldn’t imagine how big Forest would look as an adult, so I talked to our friend Doug, who owned the smallest dog (Bailey) that we knew at the time. Doug guessed that Bailey weighed around 15 pounds, so the “adult-sized Forest” image in my head became a taller version of Bailey. Nick and I thought that was a pretty good size for a dog, though maybe a little smaller than we had hoped for.

When we finally got to bring Forest home with us, he was only 4.7 pounds. He seemed so freaking tiny!

Forest next to Nick’s running shoes.

A few weeks after we adopted him, we left Forest at home (a non-potty trained puppy with no obedience skills is not travel-friendly) and went over to Doug’s house. It’s a tad embarrassing to admit now, but at first I didn’t recognize Bailey, I thought Doug was babysitting a neighbor’s dog or something. She just looked HUGE. I didn’t realize that staring non-stop at our little puppy for a couple weeks (remember this was during the “if I glance away for 30 seconds he’ll poop in the living room” phase) could change my perception of dog sizes so dramatically.

Luckily I didn’t say any of this out loud and after a few minutes figured out that it was indeed Bailey. Duh.

Forest-Sized Puppy

Surprise!

We decided to adopt Forest a few weeks before he was old enough to come home with us. As soon as the breeder confirmed that Forest was ours, we told my family and all of our friends about him. We didn’t mention anything to Nick’s family. Shhh, we were being sneaky. Our plan was to get Forest on July 25th and then visit Nick’s family in Iowa the following weekend. We thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool to just show up with an adorable puppy that no one knew about?”

Yeah, that idea sucked. As soon as I got Forest, I couldn’t shut up about him. But here was this huge group of people that had to be kept in the dark. So no messages or photos on Facebook because one of his family members might see it. No phone calls about that cute thing he does with his tail or emails describing his first car ride (which was very, very unpleasant). Nothing, nada, zip.

When we finally drove up to his family’s house in Iowa, I was almost as hyper and squirmy as Forest was to get out of the car (though I didn’t have to pee nearly as badly as he did). Besides being super excited, I was also a little nervous. My brain had cooked up a long list of things that could potentially go wrong that weekend. Maybe someone else would bring another dog and we’d spend the whole weekend breaking up fights (Forest hadn’t played with other dogs yet and I wasn’t sure how he would react). Or maybe Forest would bark all night and keep everyone up. Or maybe Forest would poop in the house and someone, naturally not expecting dog doodie on the kitchen floor, would step in it (sadly, being on constant poop alert has become habit for Nick and I). And so on.

But everything turned out wonderfully. His family adores Forest. I’ve never seen so many grown men get down on their hands and knees to play with a puppy no taller than a basketball. Yes, Forest did take a dump in the living room, but everyone was very understanding and no one stepped in it. And he did whimper a little at night but no one woke up (or they were very nice and lied about not waking up, thanks folks!).

I won’t try to describe the whole weekend in one posting, I’ll share those stories later. Overall, the weekend rocked and we weren’t allowed to leave until we promised we’d bring Forest the next time we visited. I get the impression that Calli + Nick - Forest = some sad Iowans.

Surprise!

Mystery Puppy

As I mentioned in my first post, I sometimes struggle to keep my mouth shut and not greet my co-workers with “Guess what my dog ate last night?” instead of the more casual “Good morning.” I should have clarified that this battle of willpower only occurs if I’m the one initiating the conversation. If you ask how Forest is doing, comment on the picture of him posted on my iPhone, or start talking about dogs, pets or anything furry that poops a lot, be prepared to hear all about my new little puppy.

Fortunately, I have plenty of opportunities to talk about Forest when he’s physically with me. One look at that furry face and most people comment on how cute he is (which I still love hearing), ask how old he is or if they can pet him. I’ve been so excited to talk about Forest that I usually don’t even let the interested party finish asking a question before I’m answering it. Recently, I took a moment to actually think about these conversations and realized that I’m responding to the same question over and over again, “What kind of dog is he?” So far, no one has even ventured a guess.

I’m going to admit this upfront; I’m ignorant when it comes to dog breeds. When I meet someone’s dog for the first time, I usually don’t even ask what type of dog it is because the answer will most likely mean nothing to me. When Nick and I decided we wanted to get a dog, I had to start at square one.

In case you didn’t know, Nick is severely allergic to cats and can be strongly allergic to dogs (depending on the breed). We had to do a lot of research to find a dog that wouldn’t affect his allergies. Poodles are the least likely to affect people with dog allergies, but neither of us are very fond of that breed. Luckily poodles are often used to create hybrid dogs, or designer dogs as some people call them, with cute sounding names like Cockapoo (Cocker Spaniel/Poodle mix), Pugapoo (Pug/Poodle mix), Newfypoo (Newfoundland/Poodle mix), Jack-A-Poo (Jack Russell Terrier/Poodle mix) and so on. Labradors and Golden Retrievers are great pets but are not allergy friendly, so they can be bred with Poodles to create Labradoodles and Goldendoodles.

There are also different types of hybrid dogs. An F1 Poodle hybrid has two purebred parents, one of them being a Poodle. Unfortunately, an F1 Poodle hybrid can still cause allergy problems since only half of the dog is a Poodle. An F1B Poodle hybrid has one purebred Poodle parent and one F1 Poodle hybrid parent.

Forest’s dad was a miniature Poodle and his mom was a F1 miniature Goldendoodle - half Poodle and half Golden Retriever. So, drum roll please.... the official answer is “Forest is a F1B Mini Goldendoodle”, which is a long name for such a little puppy. However, I also would have accepted “Forest is a Adorable/Fuzzy mix” or “Poopy/Rambunctious mix,” because really, they’re all correct.

Mystery Puppy

World, get ready to meet Forest

I’ve had this puppy for about a week and a half now and I’m finding it very difficult not to talk about him all the time, with anyone, anywhere. It’s actually quite tiring. Either I’m constantly trying to restrain myself from giving daily doggy updates (my coworkers probably don’t need to hear about his latest poop mishap in the house) or I’m telling the same story to a dozen different people (as amusing as the first emergency trip to the vet story may be, it’s a long one). So this blog is my solution, my salvation really. Here I can be the crazy puppy lady, a side of me that I’ve been trying to hide but is probably pretty obvious if you’ve talked to me for more than 5 minutes in the last 2 weeks :)

World, get ready to meet Forest