Meet Miss Ruby

We became a family of three on 6.14.14. 

We added this sweet girl to our family. 

Meet Miss Ruby. 

Since I have been absolutely horrendous about blogging, we're playing catch up. Fair warning: I take wayyy too many pictures of Ruby and I'm sure a fair amount will end up on this post.

 She's my fur child. Enough said. 

We always peruse ksl looking at the cute doggies and puppies that are for sale. Dan and I both grew up with dogs and we knew it was only a matter of time before we got a dog of our own. 

Obviously, we didn't plan on getting a dog before we bought a house or had a bigger yard, but we would look anyway. It's like looking at pictures of houses you know you can never buy, or afford at this point. But you look anyway. Dreaming makes all the struggles of being poor and newly married worth it. 

On this particular day, we came across a picture of a 6 week old "redbone pitbull." Disclaimer: Dan and I have talked about, on several occasions, getting a pitbull. All those rescue videos always bring me to tears and they are such sweet loyal dogs, and fantastic with kids. I had never heard of a redbone pitbull though. So we googled it and got results for both redbone hounds and pitbulls. After much deduction and deliberation *sarcasm* we realized she was a mix. 

Dan called the lady who was selling her to find out the info: why she was getting rid of her, etc. It boiled down to the simple fact that Ruby was 6 weeks old and just required a lot of attention that the lady did not have to give Ruby. 

Side note: we're not allowed to have pets at our apartment. Our awesome upstairs neighbors though encouraged us to call and ask anyway. We had lived here for a while, and not to brag, but we're pretty good tenants. Bottom line: it couldn't hurt to ask, right?

A very nerve wracking conversation (our landlords are fantastic, I just really didn't want the answer to be "no"), and an hour or so wait to hear back from them, they said we could get a dog!! I grinned from ear to ear, and jumped up and down while laughing and telling Dan to call the lady and tell her we would come get Ruby. It really was absolutely insane and completely impulsive.

On the drive out to get her, we stopped and got a little bed and a collar. We got a size small, and it was so stinking tiny that Dan and I both questioned whether or not it would be too small for her. We also quickly ran through everything to make sure we would be able to afford having a dog. We threw around some names as well. Dan came up with Ruby, because she has a red/brown coat and he wanted her to have a girly name. 

When we finally got to the house, Ruby came outside and ran across the side walk. My heart melted in that very instant and I'm pretty sure it was love. She was the cutest little puppy I had every seen in my entire life. We went straight over to PetsMart after to pick up some food and grab some puppy toys for her. I carried her on my forearm through the store. *This detail is important to me because now when I carry her anywhere it's extremely difficult. She's too heavy. 

That first night was super rough. We didn't have a kennel yet, but she slept in her bed. She cried a lot and we ended up leaving the light on for a while so she could see we were there. I didn't hardly sleep at all because I kept waking up each time she would move. I've never been a light sleeper, so this was a huge adjustment for me. Whenever we would leave the house, we had to barricade her in the kitchen and used one baby gate for each door. Within a month, she learned how to climb over that gate. 

Potty training took about a week to get down--a lot of repetition and potty breaks in the middle of the night. I was so excited when she finally was waking up only once to pee. She had been sleeping in her kennel, and then we moved her into a XL size kennel. All the advice books said to keep the kennels small  because it prevents them from peeing in their bed. Well, we didn't do that, and she didn't have problems with peeing. But she kept waking up and crying/barking in the middle of the night. 

Then she started sleeping in our bed. It didn't bother us at all, and she stopped waking up in the middle of the night to pee almost immediately. There she has stayed until very recently. For the last few days, she has started falling asleep in her kennel. I leave the door open and she stays there. Sometime in the middle of the night, she usually ends up in our bed, but I'm definitely okay with that. She's quite the little snuggle bug and I really love it. 

Right now she is teething. It's actually been fine except when we will randomly find blood on some of her toys. We've only found 1 tooth so far, and it was a really small one! 

She is almost 4 months old and weighs almost 40lbs. See what I mean, she's way too big to be carrying around, although we still do try. She is almost the size all my dogs were growing up. So from here on out, her size will be a totally new experience for me! We were told she would be about 50lbs full grown. Obviously that was wrong considering she is almost that big now. 75lbs is probably more accurate.  

At 11 weeks, she weight 22.4 lbs. Three weeks later, she was a little over 30lbs. We have already been to the vet because she threw up 5x in one night. Turns out puppies are not supposed to have bones to chew on unless they are really good and cooked. One expensive vet bill and obsessively waiting for her to poop and pass rocks, we came to the conclusion that her little tummy was just upset from the richness of the bone. 

She is learning and growing so fast and Dan and I have loved each and every minute of it. She loves going on walks and playing tug of war. We have fetch down fairly well, but releasing the object is something we're still working on. She points and loves to watch the birds. Dan can't wait to teach her to go hunting with him. She still has her moments, and tantrums. As I type, she's curled up in my lap. She still thinks she is that tiny little puppy who couldn't even jump up on the couch. 

I came home one day to find her walking on top of our table. I told Dan I would never have believed she could do it unless I saw it with my own eyes. The other day I actually caught her in the act and of course had to snap a picture. She also loves sleeping on top of the couch cushions. All the time. 

She has been such a blessing to us, and I don't know how we ever got along without her. She has taught me so much about being patient and reminded me how much love animals have. I love her fiercely wagging tail whenever either Dan or I get home. She is so genuinely excited to see us, I'm sure she'd lick our face off if we let her. We love you Ruby girl!!