Okay, let's do a living being check for our house...there would be the humans: Matt, me, Samantha, Tevin, Cadence, and our new addition TBA in June. Then there's the cats: Shasta, Emmie, and Chewbacca. And finally the dogs: Casey and, as of last night, Sasha.
Who is Sasha, you might ask? Well, Sasha would be the most adorable St. Bernard ever. She is 8 months old and as of last night she is the newest member of our family. Just look at this face:
Who is Sasha, you might ask? Well, Sasha would be the most adorable St. Bernard ever. She is 8 months old and as of last night she is the newest member of our family. Just look at this face:
See those beautiful eyes? The ones that look straight into your soul and say "love me"? Anyone who knows me is not going to believe me when I say that while those eyes were a big reason we added about 65 pounds (and growing rapidly) of new fur to our home, they weren't the biggest reason. I will admit, for as long as I can remember I have wanted a St. Bernard. I have said "I WILL have a St. Bernard someday." I can't say that I really believed that yesterday was going to be that day, but it was. It was kind of a fluke that we got her. I have been glancing at Craigslist off and on for a few months now. We met a cute 11 week old St. Bernard (who we privately named Bernie) last summer at the Humane Society in Muskegon. We had just gotten rid of Baxter, our Beagle. We could see that Casey was lonely and wanted a friend. We brought Casey and the kids to meet Bernie and we all fell in love. I did tons of research. The mean lady at the Humane Society said no, she wouldn't let us adopt him because we didn't live on an acre of land or more. We tried to plea to her, showing her research that as long as you exercise the dog regularly, which you absolutely HAVE to with a St. Bernard, they would be fine even in an apartment. She was hearing none of it. We were upset. I didn't think Matt had any great desire for a St. Bernard, but every once in awhile he would mention that he really wishes we would have gotten Bernie.
Yesterday, I was talking to our babysitter about her new little black lab puppy. I said something to the effects of "I really don't miss the puppy days. Some day I intend to get a St. Bernard, but I don't see a whole lot of them up for adoption." She said "oh, there was one listed on Craigslist just this week." When I got home, I looked. Sure enough, someone was advertising a 7 month old St. Bernard puppy. (The previous owner's math isn't great. She was born 6/9/09, making her 8 months, but that's not terribly important) I mentioned it to Matt and he asked for the number to call and get details. He was told that her name was Sasha and the owner just didn't have the time to work on training her not to jump on people. She had gotten her from Pennsylvania in August. She loves her and is sad to get rid of her, but knows that Sasha deserves a better life. Sasha has been around other dogs, a cat, and a baby around the same age as Cadence. There was someone coming that night to look at her. Matt said okay, we'll call tomorrow to see if it worked out with them or not. We discussed it and if they took her, we were okay with it. It wasn't meant to be. Fine.
Matt called yesterday afternoon. The other people didn't show or even call. Did we want to go look at her? Um...yes! We set up to go see her last night at 6:30. My mom was coming to watch the kids, and not bringing them with would help a LOT. We wouldn't have to make our decision based on their attachment. If we didn't think it was going too work out 100%, we could go home and not even tell the kids we had gone to see her. We made a pro/con list...a very long one. We very logically decided that if she had all the qualities we were looking for, the pros outweighed the cons. Matt wanted her to have nice "St. Bernard coloring". We both obviously wanted her to have a great temperment. We had been told she was AKC registered, and it was a nice thought that we might be able to breed her someday, but that wasn't a huge concern of ours.
We got to the house a bit late, and as we pulled in my mom called. She said "you're not going to look at a St. Bernard, are you?" I know that my mom doesn't want us to have another animal. She doesn't want us to have any animals. Or children, for that matter. She wasn't happy or congratulatory about this pregnancy, so it doesn't really surprise me that she hated the idea of us getting another dog. Especially a St. Bernard. Even though all the experts say that they are great family dogs, she believes that they aren't. I didn't like the thought that she was going to be mad at us, but we have been trying to make our own decisions and live our own lives. We appreciate her insight and everything she does for us, but at some point we need to do what we think is best, whether it ends up being right or not.
