Another Another New Addition?

For a few years now my wife and I have been trying to have a baby. When we realized we would not be able to we decided to look into adoption. Almost 2 weeks ago our attorney had a birth mother that chose us. She is due in January sometime.
Now that we will have a baby in our house in about 6 months we are going to have to get our dogs ready for the day we bring the baby home. I spoke with our dog trainers and they gave us several suggestions to begin with and then we can go through a more detailed training once the baby arrives.
So, now we need to go get a baby doll that makes baby noises: cry, laugh, giggle, etc. that way they will begin getting used to those sounds. Also, my wife will begin to put baby lotion on periodically so that they will get used to that smell. One smell that they will definitely have to get used to after the baby arrives is diaper contents. Of course, that is one thing I am not sure I will get used to. =)
This will be fun even though it will be a serious time of training. It will be good to get the dogs prepared. We want this to be as easy a transition for them so that they will still feel loved and wanted, yet know that there is another alpha in the family.
I may just go to good will, but a regular doll and then try to find some baby noises and downloaded them from the internet.

Great Follow-up

Well, we went over to see Tilly and how she is doing. Heard great things. She is taking to the children very well, and she is even obeying! It is wonderful to see the payoff in something you gave alot of time and attention.
The unfortunate thing for them is that Tilly is now officially in heat. We knew that it would be coming soon, but we feel somewhat bad that it happened now. The new owners did not seem to mind as they will be getting her fixed very soon.
I met a very nice lady via the internet that has runs a pit bull rescue near Tampa. I was looking to see if they could direct me to a place where we could get Tilly spayed at a really low cost. Our vet is great, but I just did not want to spend nearly $250. As I was on their site I saw that they were advertising a discounted rate for spaying pit bulls for $55! Well, we were definitely going to take advantage of that when we ended up placing Tilly. They will be taking care of that instead.
We are very satisfied that Tilly is with a great family. That was the biggest worry for us. We have no doubt that she will be a great addition.

I need my next fix!

It has been only two days now and I feel I need another rescue project. I was semi-joking with my wife that I wanted to foster another dog. She was gracious and simply asked that we waited.

I agree - we need to get things organized a little more now that we are on schedule to adopt a baby. I am still somewhat on a buzz about the possibility that we could be parents by January of next year. I have caught myself dwelling on it more and more and the concept was enjoyable to me. Then as I thought of the ramifications that this was a new life that may be given to us to raise, nurture and guide.

I am sure that we will eventually open our home to another rottweiler that needs some help. I look forward to that day, but until then I can be patient.

New Home For Tilly

We were finally able to place Tilly with a family. And the entire process was rather unique and suprising.
Yesterday, we found out that the birth mother that had viewed our profile had chosen us. Needless to say we were very excited. And since we had 5 dogs I wanted to touch base with our dog trainer, Christie, on how we could prepare our dogs for the eventual new member of the pack. I told her that we would probably still have Tilly as we really did not have much success in finding a home yet.
Then about 20 minutes after I finished speaking with her I received a call from a lady inquiring about Tilly. She was looking for a dog for her children and went into our vets office to see if they knew of anyone that was looking to find a home for their dog. They mentioned Tilly and she called.
We spoke for a few minutes, mainly my filling her in about Tilly and her past. She was fine with the information and so we scheduled a time for that evening to show her Tilly. We met that evening and they just loved her immediately! I spent some time with the kids having a good few lessons on what they could do to help her adapt to her new home as well as what they should NOT do.
We even took her to her new home and set a time to go by that weekend to follow up on how she was doing and to make sure the environment was working well for her and the new family.
We will definitely miss her tons, but know that it is best for her to get into her forever home. We look forward to doing various follow ups for the near future.
I am sure that we will eventually have another rescue, but for now we are going to focus on getting ready for the arrival of the baby due around January.

Another New Addition?

Well, my wife and I have been trying to adopt for a little while now and we heard for the first time from one of the adoption attorneys that we chose. They wanted to show our profile to a birth mother. Needless to say I was somewhat excited. Not so much excited because we have a real chance to add a baby to our family, but simply that they have someone that they feel might be a good match and they wanted to show the profile.

I will admit that I am wondering how they will digest the fact that we have 4 rottweilers (and now a pit bull that we are trying to find a forever home). Many people tell us that we should not have added the dogs to our profile. I understand completely why they suggest this (I probably would say the same thing). What we want however, is for people to see us for who we are. We want them to know that we love animals and that the baby they would entrust to us would be completely protected. I was thinking of this the other day. Yes, there are 5 "bully breed" dogs in this house that are of the natural temperament to protect home and owner to the death, but not even that. I can see Sandra "going postal" on someone trying to harm our baby. And don't even get me started on my protective nature.

Anyway, I would love to hear from anyone that has a "bully breed" in their home and they were successful in adopting. I know that it is possible and I would love to hear your story.

Not So Much of a Success

Well, after we got back from being gone most of the day we put Cody and Sheba back in their kennel, went to a couple of CVS stores to get some stuff leaving Sasha and Casey out to see how they would do.

Not so good, unfortunately. They got hold of the runner near the from door and tore some of the trim. We have tried many things to keep them from chewing on stuff. We even tried using a Habanero pepper! They just licked it off the rug! Amazing.

Well, I guess we will have to try and build their out time slowly to hopefully get them to not destroy stuff.

Success!!

Well, we left a few minutes after 10 this morning and did not get back until nearly 5:30pm. That means Cody and Sheba were loose for nearly 8 hours! They did wonderfully!

We were so excited to see the house in one piece and not have pieces of stuff scattered throughout the house.

This is great and gives us hope that we can do this more often with them. As they prove themselves and we choose the right times to allow them to be out while we are gone we are excited with the possibilities with them being loose in the house. It provides greater security of the house and we love the thought that they will be able to be free and not confined to their crates all the time.

YAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!