Bonjour Cannelle

Today was crazy!!! A co-worker let me know about a litter of chesapeake bay retriever/yellow lab mix puppies. I contacted the owner and let her know I was interested. I then started the tedious process of talking Leigh in to letting me have a puppy, seeing as we're moving into our new house soon and will have a yard. Eventually she gave in, after I promised to walk and feed the puppy and to love it and to make sure that our kitty Juneau still feels loved.

Then Leigh found another litter on Craigslist- black lab/German shepherd mix. I called about these puppies too, thinking the breeds might be better and the dog might be a little bit smaller. The owner of this litter said he could meet me at 5pm in Big Lake, a small town on the other side of Wasilla (about an hour away). After an 60 miles of driving, including being stuck in roadwork traffic for an extra 20 minutes or so, I arrived at the address in Big Lake to find the owner not there and a message from his toothless girlfriend that all the female puppies were already sold. Seriously!?!?!

I got back to my car, in Toothless-Can't-Keep-Appointment-Hicks-R-Us, Alaska, and contacted the owner of the retriever litter. She said I could stop by on the way home and meet the last girl puppy she had and discuss the needs of a larger breed dog. 40 minutes later I was meeting the cutest brown puppy in the world. The owner of the litter showed me the yard space she was used to and told me a lot about raising a dog from puppy-hood and I got to meet the puppy's parents. 30 minutes later I had written a check to cover her shots so far and we were on our way home!

We named her Cannelle, French for cinnamon, because it's a cute name and she is brown. She's a sweet girl, fairly quiet, and very well behaved. She is already responding to "sit" and is slowly learning her name.

Here's the other thing: she's HUGE! Today she turned 10 weeks old and is already over 20 pounds. She's going to be a very big doggie.

Look at that face!

We're so excited to have her, but also a little bit out of our element. We wandered around PetSmart for an hour trying to find what we needed to make her feel at home. I think we're set for now, but this will definitely be a learning process! I see "Puppies for Dummies" being added to our reading lists very soon!