I can’t tell you how long I had been begging for a dog. Years.. over 3 years to be exact. My fiance, Rob, just wasn’t into it. He worries about added stress and tension and wasn’t sure if adding the huge responsibility of an addition living being was a good idea. He thought it was a terrible idea if I’m being completely honest. I spent years trying to convince him that the good outweighs the bad.
Let me also clarify that I am self employed. I own a photography company and I work 100% out of my home. Everyday… here at home, by myself, for 9+ hours most days. There are days that I sit in my office at my desk and never see sunlight. Never leave my chair unless my body finally reminds me that I haven’t eaten anything since that banana 7 hours ago. Some days I don’t even speak, I don’t hear my own voice until Rob comes home from work at 6pm. I NEEDED a companion. Someone that would give me structure on my days when I wasn’t shooting so that I didn’t sleep in until 11am and then just sit around in my pajamas and edit all day. I need someone that will get me up at 7am every single day, force me to put on real clothes and go outside into the fresh air. I need someone that will hold me accountable for my horrible activity level and force me to take breaks and get out and get active.
We don’t have kids. We are getting married this year, October 13th 2017… oh boy it’s coming up quick. Knowing that we never really had plans to have children I knew I needed to convince Rob that dogs are such an amazing addition and all the good they bring. I didn’t want to look forward and feel like this is as complex as our life will ever be. That we would never add any more layers to our story. We have our house and our stuff… most likely not having kids, we are both only children so we don’t have nieces or nephews running around, our friend’s kids are like family but still, I wanted more to our little life. Who cares about all the stuff.. I want memories.
Eventually he cracked a little, and then a little more, and a little more. He started saything “IF.. IFFFF we get a dog, it’s all you. I’m not going to train it, I am not picking up poop, I’m not going to clean up after it when it makes a mess in the house or chews anything up. It’s YOUR dog”. I was cool with that. I get it, if I didn’t want an animal and Rob did, I’d say the same thing. However… let’s just be real, we all know he’s going to fall in love with this dog.
This was toward the middle/end of 2016. I knew Rob was adamant that if we did this that it wouldn’t be until the next year, he wanted to wait until after the wedding. I contacted a breeder that I had already been talking with here and there. One of the best German Shepherd breeders in Michigan. Gail Bauer, she’s the owner of Royale Shepherds and she’s AWESOME. I got her name from a friend and fellow photographer of mine who is a retired police officer and purchased a dog recently from her and couldn’t have been happier. I contacted Gail and got the ball rolling, I knew there would be a wait list, people all over the country and in Canada are in line for Gail’s dogs. I wanted to know the process, when I should send in a deposit, how long the wait would be, what criteria I needed to give her. I knew I wanted a female German Shepherd, either all black or black sable, low drive family pup. She told me around Spring of 2017 they planned on having an all black litter and I should wait to send my deposit until the breeding was done. Late January I sent my deposit in. I fully assumed we may not get a puppy until after October just because I figured there were many other people in line ahead of me. Then she told me she’d have a puppy for me from this litter. It was a repeat breeding and she said they have always been low/medium drive pups and almost all have been black so I would have a match unless all boys were born. I freaked a little… CRAP, Rob is going to say NO WAY! But if I didn’t go for it, we may have to wait even longer than we planned, I didn’t know when she would breed a dark litter again, or if there would be females, or if there would be a temperament match for us.
I convinced him with my charm.
I sen’t in my deposit and it was official… I was actually going to get my dog. FINALLY!
I couldn’t wait to announce it to the world.. well, at least everyone I know on social media 😉
I remember the response I got was so exciting. Remember, I had been bitching and moaning for over 3 years. Everyone knew how badly I wanted this. We picked a name and that was that. All we had to do was wait for puppies to arrive!
