changes and uncertainty

my boss sat down with me the other day to let me know that there were going to be changes with her business. they're moving out of the office space and going to just work out of their home now and have a "mobile studio" because she just feels overwhelmed with personal situations and is tired of keeping up with the office.

so, changes for me would mean that i wouldn't be driving in to work every tuesday, wednesday, and thursday. instead, she offered me to work from home as work flows in and says she'll pay me more for my work. the problem that poses is that i won't necessarially have a steady income every paycheck. i'm not sure if this is going to be a good thing, but i don't really have an option at this point. the havertys guy still hasn't gotten back in touch with me after two weeks. its pretty ridiculous! anyway, i can at least freelance for the business if i do get another job.

another thing they're wanting me to do is represent the cabinet line they're now trying to sell. i'm not really a fan of sales, but its an opportunity for comission, so i'll have to see how it goes. after all, thats what the havertys job is. of course, its a little unsettling with all these things going on and the hard economic times ahead.

just trusting in God's plan...

rub-a-dub-dub

little owen got his first bath last night! well, at least the first bath we ever gave him :). he was becoming a stinky puppy after romping around with the big boys yesterday and getting slobbered all over. after his nap from the play date, we took him over to a church family's house and had him meet five kids, five more adults, and three crazy dogs. he was afraid of all the noise...sensory overload. we had planned to do it that night, but after a bit of an overwhelming experience for the day, we decided to postpone. since documentary is a must, we got it covered with both pictures and a short video, so enjoy! i believe my camera is beginning to die...which is a travesty considering how much i use the thing. but maybe thats why its on its last leg. so forgive the poor color quality, freaky squiggles in the pictures that make it look like everything is melting, and the hiccups in the video :)

he did pretty well considering it was his first time. he obviously wasn't too happy about it! we took him out and dried him off a little and he was shaking. i think it was because he was just nervous...we had the water at lukewarm. anyway, we let him run around the living room a bit and get a little dry on the carpet before i had to blowdry him the rest of the way. he was super fluffy after that!

we gave him peanut butter for being such a good boy! i hope these pictures made you laugh...because i was cracking up over them!

first playdate

i met a local woman who also owns a havanese and we arranged a spontaneous playdate for the boys on saturday afternoon. her havanese is 1.5 years and named jackson. another woman from north carolina came over too with her havanese pablo. i wasn't sure how owen would do because he hadn't really met any other doggies yet besides his littermates.

the first dog we tried to introduce him to was our next door neighbor's dog, snooks. he's a lapso apso or something like that and seemed to be a sweet little dog. he always follows his master around, waits patiently by his side while his owner smokes his cigarette...you know, the quiet gentle type. well, when we tried to have the two meet, he sniffed owen, then growled and snapped violently at owen's face! luckily, jonathan pulled owen away in time...and owen peed himself a little. we were really upset about his first experience being such a bad one.

then our upstairs neighbor, who also has a smaller dog (she kinda looks like a mini huskey or something), was taking his dog out while i had owen out trying to go potty. she came running down the stairs, tore around the corner, and came right for little helpless owen. she was just really excited...no harm meant at all. but, of course, owen peed himself again.

so needless to say, owen was in need of a good doggie experience. i've read that its really important to socialize your dog with as many people and dogs as possible within three months of age. so the woman and i set up a playdate with our dogs and i had my fingers crossed he'd have a good time.

we arrived and, of course, everyone fell in love with how adorable and soft he was. we introduced him to the other boys (both 1.5 years, and about 15 pounds...which is on the larger side for the breed). owen was extremely shy. he hid by my side and kept trying to crawl up into my arms to escape sniffs and licks from the others.

after about 15 minutes, owen left my side and was willing to be scooped up in the new strangers arms, giving them little kisses. he then approached jackson and pablo and exchanged little bats with his paws at the others.



then, they were off! all four pounds of little owen did his best to keep up...and in play got his entire head soaked from the other dog's slobber.

can you tell his head is all wet?

well, i'm really glad that maryam had an awesome camera. you can really tell that owen had fun when you look at these pictures. jackson (the gray/white dog) was smitton with owen, who seemed drawn to pablo (black), who apparently was like the "cool kid" who just did his own thing.



running pictures are the best...i love them!!!

i snatched owen up for a few minutes to let him get some rest...these would be perfect if owen didn't look so messy!
when owen finally tuckered out, we went inside, where he crashed. even in sleep, jackson still wouldn't leave owen's side. he was a bit obsessive!



following this shot was owen's first car ride where he didn't whine the whole way. this is because he was unconscious! oh, how much easier things are when the puppy takes a nap!

owen's first week home

our first week with owen has been a bit crazy. he is certainly like a baby...he demands pretty much every second we're home to be spend by his side. but he's adorable...who wouldn't love to sit and look at this little uncoordinated ball of fur play with his chew toy?

owen loves mr. hippo...he especially enjoys gnawing on mr. hippo's ears and tail.

owen has been really great so far. besides the whining when we're not right next to him, he has been wonderfu. but even the howling and crying has gotten better in just three days. we've been hand feeding him his meals to make him learn "sit" and "down" and "come here!". he actually has all those down really well and knows his name! i've heard it sometimes takes awhile for dogs to learn their name, but my little owen is a smartie :)

yes, we've had the 5 am potty trips and he's not a happy camper when we first put him in his crate every night, but after a few minutes he settles down and falls asleep. the funniest noises come out of that little guy. they're piggy noises and whinnys and grunts. its hilarious.

he has done wonderful with the potty training. we've had to leave him alone for the days when we've been at work (the past three) for a couple of hours at a time and he's peed on the puppy pad every time and only pooped off of it once. he's really good about pottying outside and i think he's only had 3 accidents. pretty good!

he is so stinking cute. if you can't tell from the pictures, he's even cuter in real life!

i've gotten quite a few shots of little owen sleeping...but don't be mistaken. he doesn't sleep all the time. but he certainly gets more sleep than i do.

bringing home baby!

i've been bursting with excitement for the past two months and its been an agonizingly long wait to make this announcement! today, jonathan and i brought home our little fuzzy bundle of joy...owen!

we've been keeping it under wraps for a long time, so now i've got to go back and tell you all about our little owen and how we came to adopt him as our family member! (i've been using a lot of exclamation points...can you tell i'm excited?!!!)

it all started on a west coast beach around sunset, the day before thanksgiving. jonathan and i spent thanskgiving out west in oregon with jessica and brandon. we spent the day driving up the oregon coast, checking out different beaches, including canon beach. it seemed that everyone on that beach had a dog, and one little dog caught mine and jonathan's eye. it was a 10 month old havanese. yea, i had never heard of one either. but it was love at first sight for me!

a bit of a history lesson follows. if you're not interested in history, skip to the next paragraph :)

this is the information i've gathered about the breed...i'm not sure how well i'll do with accuracy, but you'll get the jist. the havanese breed is from, you guessed it, cuba. back in the day, the upper class families of havana loved these little dogs and they were definitely a status symbol. the havanese could not be bought from a breeder...they could only be given as gifts to the very wealthy. people loved them because of their friendly nature, compatibility with children, their clownishness, and their desire to always please. they are "non-shedding", tyically from 8-12 pounds, and come in all sorts of colors. but as the american influence in cuba grew, the cubans began to prefer popular american breeds instead. with different political upheavals, some of the elite cuban families were exiled and they fled to florida. the breed almost became extinct until, in the 1970s, a breeder from colorado took interest in the breed and was able to gather havanese from different parts of the country and begin reviving them. they were adopted into the akc in 1997 or so. there are only about 4000 havanese in the US. thats a good summary.

so after our trip to oregon, a little seed was planted in the back of my mind. after christmas, i began looking around the state for local breeders and researching more about the dogs. and what luck! i found a breeder who was within 10 miles of us. we got in touch with the breeder and she had just had a litter of two girls and three boys...born january 17! two of the puppies had already been reserved when we signed up on the waiting list. those were "red male with blaze" and "red female with solid face". jonathan wanted a male, so we were deciding between the black and the champagne one. the breeder was out of town for a few weeks, so we couldn't visit the puppies. we then got another update from her: all the breeders come up with litter themes and assign the puppies temporary names. their theme was "our favorite jeans". puppies are so cute! anyway, at 6 weeks, we finally got to visit the puppies and, of course, i took about a hundred pictures. at that point, one of the families that got to choose before us hadn't decided which puppy they wanted yet, so we went to visit both "levi" and "calvin". its funny, because we were actually considering both of those names. in the visit, i had a strong gravitation to "levi". he enjoyed posing for the camera most. This was the most adorable row of pictures...he wakes up from a curled up ball... turns himself over onto his back... i rub his little belly... he falls asleep...precious! and then his brothers and sisters smother him because, obviously, he's got too much room :) and then we said goodbye for two more weeks. as you can see from the pictures, by the time we left we decided that "levi" would be our first pick. the family who was supposed to select before us were supposed to visit the next day...which was the day everyone had that blizzard. we were waiting on pins and needles hoping we'd get little "levi", but trying to stay positive if we ended up with "calvin".

about a week later, the family still hadn't visited, but in an email, the breeder told us that they were "pretty sure" they wanted "calvin". for us, "pretty sure" wasn't satisfying because that obviously leaves some wiggle room for them to change their mind. that made last week the longest week ever! in the meantime, we had a nametag made and picked out the name "owen".

we got the apartment all puppy proofed...taped up wires, created blockades, picked up chewables. i joined a forum online for havanese owners to try to gather up as much puppy info i could find. i was fortunate to find that there is another havanese owner down the road a couple miles...another great thing because, as i said before, they're not very common. the forum has been great and has tons of owners all over the country on there with advice and tips with everything from training to grooming to picture sharing! its great.

so this morning jonathan got up and went to work for a few hours. we went to pick up owen around 1 pm and spend over an hour with the breeder getting helpful tips and information from her. owen is such a sweetie! he cried the whole way home and wasn't easy to settle over the 20 minute car ride, but once we got him home, he was wagging his tail and playing with us.

i tried to get tons of pictures, yet again, but he's just so fast and my camera isn't the greatest with poor lighting and action shots! after about two hours of constant play, his little puppy body got worn out and he fell asleep on my lap :). after awhile, i got up and put him in his crate to sleep...and i figured i'd get this up while he's down for a bit!

that little face is irrisitable! sleeping in daddy's arms :)
the photographer doesn't get in many pictures, so a blurry one will do.
notice our creative "puppy proofed" play area :)