Puppy love

I chose Riley from the Spencer County Humane Society about a week before Josh and I got married.  There were four puppies bounding and leaping through the grass. One puppy even followed me around the yard playfully licking at my heels. That is not the puppy that I chose though. I chose the shy little guy, keeping his distance, and hiding behind the others. The one that would have been easy to miss, easy to overlook and leave behind. He walked clumsily, cautiously, taking in everything around him. He is the one that I chose. Riley. Long legs. Chocolate colored fur. White markings on his neck. Skeptical. Slow. He rested his head on my lap on the way home. I knew that I had made the right choice.

I kept that in mind when he chewed up the remote control, dug in the landscaping time and time again, helped himself to my chocolate and my gum, and our leftover rotisserie chicken from dinner. I remembered that when he did his business in the living room  on the shaggy brown carpet after eating that chicken. Yuck. I kept that in mind later when he chewed up baby clothes and got sick on the rug that I had spent hours upon hours working on for the nursery. He was still the right choice for us.

When I was pregnant, he was my constant bed rest companion, resting his head on my belly. He never left my side and he loved Eden even before she was born.

When we brought her home from the hospital, he stood like a guard at her pack n play, watching, wondering about the tiny little creature that we had brought home. He was curious and skeptical, but it was love at first sight. When she cried, he looked at us, as if to say, "Help her!"

As she has become more interactive, he has become more interested in her, and she in him. Luckily she enjoys it, smiles and laughs even, when he sneaks in a lick.  :)





 

As I was writing this blog today, Riley was laying his head on the edge of her activity mat, watching her play. Eden was reaching for him and trying to get closer to him, and she happened to have her first back to belly roll over, trying to get closer to her puppy, her best friend. How perfect!