Whammy

Well, we arrived in Oklahoma yesterday to find that Linda, the breeder, wanted us to consider a whammy she was throwing our way.

The whammy was that Pink had an underbite and a potentially wonderful "pet quality" home with someone else if I wanted to consider Orange...with a few strings.

We took Pink and Orange outside for some focused interaction. I wanted to keep my mind open and pay attention to both girls. I had paid a great deal of attention to Orange a few weeks earlier when visiting the puppies, but I'd pretty much set my mind on Pink. During this second visit, I found myself preferring Orange over Pink. The strings of picking Orange over Pink would mean co-ownership with Linda and an agreement to possibly breed Orange in three or four years. I'd get a puppy from that litter for free, but Orange would spend five weeks at Linda's home...and it's hard to let your pet go for any amount of time. It hurts your heart. There are many stipulations to the breeding, and I agree with all of them. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Orange has a nicer looking head than Pink and is definitely a show quality pup. I was surprised at how little thought I needed to say that I was happy to take Orange. I really like Linda, I agree with her puppy raising philosophies, I respect her opinion and expertise, and I think we will have a very successful partnership with this pup. Oh, and I really LOVE Orange. She is adorable -- so wonderful, sweet, and cute as a button. What I love most right now is the satisfaction I feel from a win-win situation. To make others happy makes me happy, but it's awesome when we can all be happy and in agreement about something. Everybody compromises in the deal, yet everybody gets something they want out of it.

So Orange is at home now, and she's starting to adjust to her new surroundings. She's very very bad. It will take some time for her to adjust to her new friends, toys, routine, etc. She's confused about some things...most notably that the majority of her toys and accessories are pink. I'll have to find some orange things for her. We didn't sleep last night, so we're all hurting today, but we'll get past this adjustment phase and into some really exciting territory in the weeks and years to come. I'm just happy to have a Terv in the house again. It feels right and it feels good.