ANNOUNCEMENT: We're getting a dog!
After doing everything humanly possible to fight temptation and hold off getting a dog until we were married, Lindsay and I next week will be the proud parents of a Boston Terrier named Patty Cake (which, per our years of planning, will be renamed Gatsby).
She’s three, crate-trained, and reportedly likes to snuggle. She’s a rescue, having been given up by a family that had a few cats—she, like us, doesn’t get along with cats.
Despite all the planning, it still feels like it’s happening really fast. Next Saturday we’ll drive up to New Hampshire to meet the transporter who’s coming up through the Northeast. I’m preparing to be overwhelmed because apparently there will be lots of people receiving lots of dogs.
This week we have lots of final preparations to make. We get to use a $200 gift card to our local Petsmart (thanks mom!) to get a crate and leash and some toys and a jacket (they’re short-haired, and our winters are rough). We need to hide a few last cables around the condo. And we have to train my sister-in-law not to crush the dog with excitement: her away message currently reads “PUPPY!!!!”.
I’ve wanted a dog for who knows how long. My family had two, Coffee and Clara, that passed away when I was little. I once thought I was getting two dogs when I asked for one for Christmas and my step-dad amended my wishlist to read “I would like a dog dad. Yes, you can have two of them.” And then I found out few years ago that my mom’s reason for not wanting any more dogs—that she was allergic—was a lie, that she actually just couldn’t bring herself to tell me that she couldn’t handle dogs getting old and passing away. Which isn’t stopping her and my step-dad, once they found out my wife and I are getting one, from deciding it was time for them to get a dog too.
We’re getting a Boston Terrier because it’s the official family dog of my wife’s family. Her cousin has one, her aunt used to breed them, her dad grew up with them, and her grandfather’s 90th birthday card featured him being crushed by three chubby Bostons. Our pup will get the name Gatsby because BT’s are known as the American Gentleman—they look like they’re wearing tuxes, and to us tuxes equal Jay Gatsby.
It scares me that I’m actually looking forward to getting up even earlier to go for walks….
