Puppy Love

Oh, to be in love again . . . Well, not really "in love," but certainly loving and caring. And how is that even possible in the course of a day or two - to be so utterly overwhelmed with those feelings in that short a time? "Puppy love" always seemed to be used to describe teenage crushes, but maybe it originated to describe those feelings I just mentioned. And Kelly is just as smitten as I am, perhaps even more so. As you must have guessed, we are now puppy parents.

Kelly and I had many conversations about getting a dog once we moved here, and we were both interested in getting one (or two, or more). We both had an interest in Labradors, and Kelly did a lot of research to find a good breeder in or near Missouri. She found one in the Ozarks, about a 5-hour drive from our home. After constantly monitoring the breeder’s website, and overcoming indecisiveness as to when to get a dog, we put our name in for the upcoming litter of yellow lab puppies. This was back in mid-April. We found out we had the 3rd pick of that litter and decided to get a female. Time passed quickly, and before we knew it, the time had arrived to make the trip to pick up our fur baby. We decided to name her Islay (pronounced “Eye-La”) after the Scottish whisky island. Those of you who enjoy a wee dram or two of world-class Scotch Whisky now and again, will find her name familiar. Since the breeder was located in the Ozarks, and that was about a 5-hour drive from our home, we decided to make it an overnight trip and include an Ozark hike on the day before "dog day." Hoping to get in a 12 to 14 mile hike, an extra early start was needed to get down there and still have the time to do it. This meant getting up at 5 a.m. (how did I ever do that on a daily workday basis just a few months ago?) to be on the road around 5:30 a.m. We were pretty close to leaving on time, and we had some good maps of the Ozark trails, so we were able to find the trailhead with no trouble at all, arriving around 10:45 a.m. We got all geared up and hit the trail fifteen minutes later. The trail seemed pretty straightforward, and was well marked, so we thought a good day of hiking was ahead. Not too far in, we hit a few patches of overgrowth on the trail but nothing too bad - until it did get bad (and then worse). Not only was it overgrown in some low-lying areas, but a great deal of the greenery was poison ivy. Kelly has no issue whatsoever with poison ivy, but I'm not so lucky. In fact, I would say I'm cursed by the way my skin reacts to the stuff. It doesn't take much before my skin starts blistering, and the maddening itching begins. Luckily, I had decided to wear long hiking pants instead of shorts, so I just had to be careful about my arms. The trail was pretty bad, but not bad enough to turn around and head back to the car.

But then it got worse. As bad as I have it with poison ivy, Kelly has it just as bad with ticks when hiking. Everyone has their demons in life, and ticks are in that category for Kelly. As we were hiking, Kelly noticed a couple on her and stopped to flick them off. She saw a couple on me, and I got them off too. But where were they on me? My pants! And now I have touched my poison ivy pants with my hands (oh no!) as I flicked the ticks off. Quick! Hand sanitizer (of which, I had no idea if it would remove the poison ivy oils that cause my issues)! All of sudden, we're stopping every five minutes or so to brush the ticks off (and I touch my pants again! - and there is not enough Purell to deal with the frequency at which we're stopping). Now we are thinking about cutting the hike short (way short) because we have to hike back on the same path we came in on (more ticks and poison ivy - yay!). We came to a woods road and checked our map. We found we could road walk back to the trailhead and not have to double back on our demons. That was an easy decision, and the hike was cut short at 6.5 miles, but at least no more worries about continued exposure. I carefully stripped off my hiking pants back at the car and changed into the shorts I had worn on the drive down. A few more ticks were found but nothing like we were finding on the trail. The drive to the hotel was pretty short and once we got to the room we had to monkey check each other, looking for ticks before showering. Many were found on Kelly, and just a few on me.

After a good night's sleep, we awoke to “dog day.” The breeder was about a one hour drive from where we stayed, on mostly two-lane, paved roads that were in good shape, but the last turnoff was onto a gravel road, and then that split and it was pretty much a one-lane gravel road - a good indication of limited traffic ahead. Luckily, we had only a little further to go down this lane. We pulled in and saw a couple of dogs in the yard, but nothing to make you think there were many more dogs around. We got out and met the breeder and her husband, and then saw our new pup waiting for us in the crate. They let her out and she just started running around and playing, so unaware that her life was about to change. We signed some papers, got some info and a goody bag, said our goodbyes, and we were off. There was a lot of whimpering and whining from her at first, but after about thirty minutes she calmed down. Kelly's lap was her seat for most of the ride. We stopped two hours later for gas and let her walk around in a small park near the station to stretch her legs and have a little water break, and then we were off for the final leg. Considering the length of the trip, and her taking it with total strangers, she did much better than we ever expected. It was probably very stressful for her, but she only showed it by crashing hard once we were home. And sleep hard these puppies do - they exhaust themselves with their play and then they're out for a couple of hours at least. What do they dream about when they sleep? The lips are half growling, the paws moving like they're running, the occasional whimper - with only eight weeks of life experience, what could it be? Fighting with brothers and sisters over mom's best teat? One of those things you can only guess at, but we will never know.

A life-changing experience so far (perhaps just due to less sleep), but in a good way. We can no longer think how things would be without her because we've grown so fond of her so quickly, it is now unimaginable.

Islay's story on the farm will be continued . . .

J.