Oh, man.

When Jose, our old dog, was alive, I would sometimes tell myself that we wouldn't get another dog after he died. No one to remember to take outside, no one to remember to feed, no one to worry about when we go on vacation, no one peeing in our house when he's home all alone during thunderstorms...nice, right? Then, after Jose died, it made even more sense not to start all over because we have a new house and new furniture and the last thing I want is some new dog peeing in our new house and chewing up our new furniture. Makes sense, right?

In spite of all that, Steve was thinking that we should get a new dog, because his opinion is that "it just seems like a family should have a dog". While I kind of agree with that, I knew that getting a new dog at this time didn't make a lot of sense. At least, my reasonable side knew that. The problem was that my emotion-driven, idiotic, completely unreasonable side was telling the reasonable side to shut up. And then after telling it to shut up, it beat it into submission. Then, knowing that reason could no longer play any part in this decision, that darn unreasonable side started to look online for puppies that might be available. Grrr. So, even as I was telling Steve and myself that I didn't want to get another dog, I was at the same time telling Steve about this puppy or that puppy that might be a good fit for our family. Crazy, I tell you.

So last weekend I finally found a breeder that had a litter of Shih-tzus that were ready to go and reasonably priced and that looked super cute online. We drove about two hours to get to her house and look at the puppies. The little Shih-tzus were pretty cute, but there was another dog there that really caught our attention. He was a Shorkie, which is a half Shih-tzu, half Yorkie. He was unbelievably cute and so playful so we started to think we should get him instead. However, we had our hearts set on a Shih-tzu because that's what our old dog was and we know they are such great dogs. So, before my reasonable self could step in and try to restore order, we bought two puppies and headed home. Gah!

So, here is the Shorkie, whom we named Sherman, on his way to his new homeand here is Mickey.I am being super diligent about getting them trained well, for the sake of our new house and furniture. In the car on the way to the breeder I read "Everything You Need to Know To House Train your Puppy" out loud to my family so we could get a head start on learning the best way to train these guys. I'm sure my children were riveted. We also have an obedience training lady coming here on Wednesday night to give us a crash course on training puppies.So far it's been going pretty well. We're crate training them, which was sad the first night because they cried a lot, but after that it's been much easier. Now they don't mind being in the crate at all. I'm already tired of setting my alarm for 2:00 a.m. to let them out to go potty, but I suppose that won't last forever.They really are adorable and lots of fun, so - so far, at least - I am not regretting the decision to get them. I am, however, looking forward to when they are completely trained so I can stop being so vigilant all the time. My book promised that would be in 30 days, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that that is really true. Twenty-one days to go!