The Story of Little Doc

July 07, 2016

The Story of Little Doc

Good morning friends! It's been-- two months?! I can't blame my lack of writing on a vacation-packed summer for this year. I'll just say with school and work, life has been busy, and I have a little vacation time coming up where I'm just wanting to book a plane ANYWHERE. Instead, I think I'll be staycationing as our Cali/Alaska/Florida trips have all been cancelled due to busy school schedules for Scott and me. I guess there's one other thing that has been keeping us super busy this summer, and that's the newest addition to our family, a little 8 month old German Shorthaired Pointer puppy named Doc.

His full name that he came with from his foster family is Doc Holliday (who, quite ironically, was a dentist turned outlaw in the 1800s. We joke that Scott is an outlaw turned dentist-- so what a great fit :)), but I call him Little Doc. Scott and I have been talking about dogs for a long time and knew that we were getting close to being able to get one, but just didn't feel like it was the right time yet. I had jokingly told Scott that I was asking for a dog in April for my birthday and that if I didn't get one, I would get Scott one for his birthday in May. Our birthdays came and went, and neither of us received a dog for our birthdays. We were also very interested in bird dogs-- I had seen a lot about German Shorthaired Pointers (GSPs) online and thought they were adorable, and Scott agreed that this would be a good breed for us. We were also pretty determined to adopt to give a dog in need of a home a chance at more love and snuggles than it could ever dream of.

In late May, we were driving home to North Carolina for Crystie (Scott's cousin) & Mike's wedding. We had just started down the road from our house when I noticed a notification pop up on my phone from an app I use in my neighborhood called NextDoor (kind of like social media for your neighborhood-- lots of things for sale, notices about crime, etc.). I usually look at the notifications and then delete them, but this one caught my attention. Someone was fostering a 7 month old GSP and was looking for a forever home for the little guy. It's not often that you see GSP puppies available for adoption, so we were immediately interested. I sent the foster family a message, and they told me that I was second in line behind a family that really wanted Doc. She said we could do a meet and greet if the first family passed him by. We prayed that weekend that things would work out in God's timing and not our's regarding a dog. This really wasn't the pre-determined "time" for us to be getting a dog, we really needed "just a few more months."

I wasn't discouraged by this news, and instead became very hopeful that we would meet him. We told a few family members back home that we were going to meet a dog when we got back, and that's exactly what we did. When we got back to Indy, I sent the foster family a message to inquire about Doc's first meet and greet. They wrote back saying that unfortunately, the first family had to pass him up because of allergy issues. I have allergy issues with certain dogs but wasn't sure about this breed yet as I've never been around a GSP. We scheduled the meet and greet, and on Wednesday of that week Doc came over to meet us. I opened the door and he immediately jumped up like the playful, excited puppy that he is. We walked to the living room and Doc jumped up in my lap and remained there for most of the evening. I loved this dog. I knew we were going to keep him. I had no allergy issues with him that night, but we requested a "trial weekend" so that we could test my allergies. We were told that we were approved to adopt him and that if the trial went well, we could just keep him from that point on.

The night before our trial weekend, I went to the pet store and bought some toys for Doc. I could have spent $200 on toys but decided to keep it under control since we didn't officially have him yet. Doc came over on Friday afternoon and hasn't left us since. We are dealing with some typical puppy struggles like separation anxiety and remembering to use the bathroom outside (which he is good about unless we aren't home), but he is a really great dog. He is so trainable and has picked up on things so quickly. He was described by his foster mom as "an aggressive cuddler who is always on a mission to be the little spoon," and he has lived up to this description.

Scott and I are learning a lot from this experience, and we're working on communicating better as we take care of a third party in our lives. I'm struggling with not being offended when people give me their two cents about how I should train him or not letting him on the furniture or what food I should feed him, and I'm also learning that I love dogs way more than people and that I just wish I could be as loving to others as dogs are to us.

Here's a few of my favorite pictures of Little Doc.