We got a puppy! And when we first brought him home, we had no idea just how much our lives would change - we quickly discovered that it can be even more difficult than the newborn phase! In this fun and furry episode, we share our journey of adding King to our family, and how our other dog Dewy, is (or isn't) adapting to the new addition.
From the struggles of potty training in the winter months to the benefits of professional training programs, this episode is packed full of insights into the highs and lows of dog ownership. Don't miss out on these relatable stories and feel free to reach out to us with your own experiences!
Thanks for joining us for your weekly dose of confidently unqualified advice!
Let's keep the conversation going! Connect with us below!
Instagram: www.instagram.com/lifeunmasteredpodcast
Email: lifeunmasteredpodcast@gmail.com
Website: www.lifeunmasteredpodcast.com
We got a puppy! And when we first brought him home, we had no idea just how much our lives would change - we quickly discovered that it can be even more difficult than the newborn phase! In this fun and furry episode, we share our journey of adding King to our family, and how our other dog Dewy, is (or isn't) adapting to the new addition.
From the struggles of potty training in the winter months to the benefits of professional training programs, this episode is packed full of insights into the highs and lows of dog ownership. Don't miss out on these relatable stories and feel free to reach out to us with your own experiences!
Thanks for joining us for your weekly dose of confidently unqualified advice!
Let's keep the conversation going! Connect with us below!
Instagram: www.instagram.com/lifeunmasteredpodcast
Email: lifeunmasteredpodcast@gmail.com
Website: www.lifeunmasteredpodcast.com
I was actually really shocked at how opinionated some people were about this.
Speaker 2:And you shouldn't be. I mean, people are sharing their opinions, whether you ask for them or not.
Speaker 1:anyways, That's true. I shouldn't have been surprised, because people they really do just have an opinion about everything, don't they?
Speaker 2:Yeah, i mean, it's a big decision too. You need to decide if you want one that fits in your purse, one that sits on your hip or, you know, one that takes up your whole lap.
Speaker 1:And there's some things that are just a hard no for me, especially when it involves the safety of our kids. So a few months ago we did a thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we've already had it for nine months now.
Speaker 1:And it's not a baby. Yeah, but it felt like one.
Speaker 2:It might as well be.
Speaker 1:We got a family dog.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a big family dog.
Speaker 1:A big family dog. I've never had an indoor big dog before.
Speaker 2:All the dogs I can remember having growing up lived outside like all the time.
Speaker 1:Yes, and you know it's crazy, because that's how my family dogs were too, and I would never think to do that now, and I'm really not like the biggest animal person either. But even like my cold, hard heart is like no, i can't leave my dog outside.
Speaker 2:Well, it's a little different here We grew up both grew up in Southern California, and now we live in Colorado, where I'm pretty sure we can't just leave the dog outside in 10 below.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's very true, but also, too, i think that for you and I, like, the dog is just part of the family.
Speaker 2:An annoying part of the family.
Speaker 1:So we already had Dewey when we decided to get a new dog, my precious Dewey. And I really, now that we have King, i don't really think Dewey counts as a dog. Dewey's a cat, he is a cat.
Speaker 2:So Dewey was raised by Bengal cats. I had two Bengal cats that were full grown, which are massive cats and amazing cats If you have a chance to get one, do just plan on all your furniture getting broken. But Dewey was raised by those cats basically, and once you started, convinced me enough that you had allergies.
Speaker 1:Are you really doing this right now? We?
Speaker 2:had to get rid of those cats and Dewey just took over the house. He's a little, maybe three pound pom-chi, which is half pomeranian, half Chihuahua. Basically he's a hairy Chihuahua and he is my special guy, okay.
Speaker 1:We're going to back up a little bit to the allergies because this needs to be noted I had crazy allergies with those cats.
Speaker 2:Maybe they suddenly came on and then suddenly went away.
Speaker 1:Okay, i can't even with you right now. Once we got rid of them, my world changed because I could finally breathe again. I didn't realize how bad it was. Anyway, those Bengals, as much as Dewey is like a cat, those cats were like dogs, full on dogs.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It was. They had such personalities. They had more of a personality than Dewey does.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i mean, getting Dewey was interesting because you basically texted me while I was at work and just told me I was coming home to a new dog.
Speaker 1:Kind of So. we had just gone through the ectopic pregnancy and. I was feeling like I needed something fluffy to love and cuddle on.
Speaker 2:You needed a baby to love on.
Speaker 1:I did. We had been looking at pictures and I found Dewey while you were at work and I was like trying to convince you over text.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a little girl around the corner from our house was basically selling her dog's litter out of a box and you found I don't know how it's possible to think back on it because he's so tiny now but he was smaller, like he was like a pound. I have no idea. He's fit in the palm of our hand. He's so tiny, so little.
Speaker 1:And we actually do refer to him as our forever puppy. Yeah. So he, i loved him. I remember when I was pregnant with Jace, i was about to have him and I was like how am I possibly going to love anything more than I love you?
Speaker 2:Dewey found out real quick. I've never seen somebody fall so far down the ranking in the household as Dewey did.
Speaker 1:I know First to last. It happened so fast too. I don't even. I can't really even put like anything to it. but yeah, now we're main Dewey or not, friends, He does not like me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not much actually.
Speaker 1:And he also doesn't really like the kids.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:He's not mean to them, he's just very indifferent and he is uninterested in them at all. and they'll want to love on him a little bit and he's like back up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he growls.
Speaker 1:He does. So we wanted to get a family dog, a true big family dog that the kids can grow up with and love on and will be just as into them as they are with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think going into that as much as Dewey was kind of an impulsive by, i would say, the fam, even though we talked about the family dog for a while as soon as, like, we decided that this is what we're doing. it was very much an impulsive by too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i mean, we had talked about him for a while, we knew that we wanted to get a dog, but we were also moving into this brand new house that we had built and I wanted some time for us to kind of live in this home and break it in, like before a dog came in and broke it in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, You're a lot less likely to put me or one of the kids outside for being bad, as you are a new puppy.
Speaker 1:Exactly, i didn't want to like instantly hate the dog because it like ruined my brand new house. Or towel. Oh gosh, yes. So we did decide to wait, but I had always had this dream of giving our kids a puppy on Christmas morning, and so we had kind of had this plan. But that kind of all went out the window because we, like impulsively, just decided to buy him as soon as we saw him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like within a week.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:How did we go about choosing the dog?
Speaker 1:I think that you and I both had very different opinions on what type of dog we wanted. I wanted your traditional family dog, a golden retriever or a lab or some type of mix of those two, they seem so boring to me.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's just so traditional and I've always wanted a Husky and we live in snow now and I thought it was a perfect match And I love that. from everything I know, huskies are kind of like the bangles of the dog world and where they talk to you they're very loud and like personality and needy Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I felt like that was exactly the opposite of what we needed, like we already had two kids that were loud and needy and never stopped talking.
Speaker 2:So we didn't need a furrier version.
Speaker 1:We did not, and so your idea of like a compromise was to get a German shepherd.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i thought that was good. I mean like police and military use German shepherds and I thought it would be easy to train. And you reminded me they train those dogs to get people not to, you know, roll over.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not to be like family dogs And I like the idea of, like your quote, unquote boring traditional dog. Cause, i just wanted this like perfect little family dog for the kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that you might have seen on Pinterest or another site and decided that's what we needed.
Speaker 1:I mean, no, that's not what happened. But I, just when I think of family dog, i think of King, and that's exactly what he is. Yeah. But anyway, we did some Googling, did some research, made sure we knew what we were getting into with breeds, and we did eventually decide to land on a golden retriever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a nice hairy, golden that sheds everywhere.
Speaker 1:He's actually not too bad, but I think that might get. That might change over time as he gets older. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But we decided to kind of go with a dog. That would be great around kids And that was kind of our main goal. And in our case we decided we had two options Most everybody does. You can either go with a rescue dog or you can get one from a breeder. And for me there wasn't really it wasn't up for discussion. We were gonna get a dog from a breeder And I think that was where you stood as well. Always.
Speaker 1:And I don't know if I would have made a different decision if we didn't have kids. Especially because we had kids, i wanted to make sure that we didn't have to worry about the history of a dog, whether they were previous abuse or behavior issues, bad habits. There's just there's certain things that you just don't even have to worry about when you go from a breeder cause you're getting this brand new puppy And we wanted the kids to grow up with this puppy from day one, and that's just the decision that we made And I stand by that completely. I know that people are very opinionated about that And there was plenty of people that voiced that to us as well.
Speaker 2:They get really upset which is kind of funny to me, but that's okay.
Speaker 1:But, like you've said, there's many people who love their pets more than other humans.
Speaker 2:The reality is is anybody that's ever worked in sales or worked with people, bought a car or done anything? you really don't know if what the person telling you is true. So you don't know if the history of the dog you're getting is the real history of that dog.
Speaker 1:Well, not only that, but there's a lot of dogs that come in there that they don't know anything about, Sure, and so I just don't wanna put my kids or a family in any position that could cause harm or danger And so You just don't know, yeah. So, anyways, that's a decision that we made for ourselves, and so once we knew that we were going that route, we started our search for a breeder, and that was way more difficult than I thought it was gonna be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, finding a breeder is incredibly hard because there are a lot of traps out there on the internet.
Speaker 1:There are, and not only like the true, just pure scams, but also you've got these breeders who are just have these like mini puppy mills almost. Yeah, Where they're just they're breeding their poor puppies constantly. Constantly. Which causes, you know, their own issues, and that was something that we wanted to be careful about too, cause we really want our dog to be as healthy as possible. We don't wanna bring this brand new sweet puppy in And then it doesn't, doesn't live very long, Yeah cuz our kids are gonna naturally get attached to it. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:So we ended up going Like American Kennel, something like that something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's an actual, certified Like program like reputable Yeah it gives you a list of breeders who are certified and do everything right.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and that was nice because they did all of our registration and all of the vaccines and shots and all that good stuff were done and And so, yeah, we saw. Well, let me back up just a little bit. We I mentioned before that I want to do the Christmas whole thing right And we had a hard time Because we were going with a reputable, reputable nope, don't look at me.
Speaker 2:I use small words.
Speaker 1:Okay, you know what I mean. I'm just gonna skip over that. Breeder we Um, it was hard to kind of find a litter that fit into where our timeline Yes and so once we realized that the puppy was easy gonna be here way too early or way too late, we're like all right, well, let's just get one right now.
Speaker 2:Yep, that that definitely Factored into the impulse buy was we have to do it now or we're not gonna be able to do it for another year?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then the other thing was that all that was left were females and we knew we wanted a male puppy. Mm-hmm and so as soon as we saw King, here's the last male left and we just jumped on it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i remember telling you like, get them. You're like, are you sure? Well, like, don't think about it, just do it. I.
Speaker 3:Love when you get in that mode It's like my favorite. I'm like just spend the money.
Speaker 1:And then I got to do it real quick, before you change your mind.
Speaker 2:How will we? it doesn't matter, we'll live on love. So after you get the puppy, the next important thing obviously is chooses a name right and with you being. The masternamer the masternamer.
Speaker 1:You've had a significant role in naming our animals and our children.
Speaker 2:Yeah if you've been paying attention or depending on how much you know about LA Kings, pretty much all of our children and animals that we've ever had have been nicknames of LA Kings hockey players or my favorite alcohols.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we had we. Your bangles were quick. Quicker, Jonathan quick. Mm-hmm, we had Stella after.
Speaker 2:Stella the beer.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, and then Dewey.
Speaker 2:Dewey, which is Drew Doughty's nickname and then Jace Jameson. Yep Tom and.
Speaker 1:Hall your whiskey, and then Carter for Jeff Carter. Yeah, but we do spell it with a K Yeah, and now we have King we have King just kept it simple.
Speaker 2:I ran out of players.
Speaker 1:You know what with the naming of King, we had talked about naming our dog King For a long time and you, we kind of like you kind of wanted to save that for Husky.
Speaker 2:I think you still were hoping that we was so badly was a black and white Husky named King would be so epic.
Speaker 1:It would be, but I just didn't see us ever getting a Husky.
Speaker 2:There's always Bailey.
Speaker 1:Oh, what do you do?
Speaker 2:even it's kind of a girl's name it is.
Speaker 1:Did we even throw that into the options? I don't remember, but we went through Hundreds of name options and then landed back at King. Yeah, we full circle We did and I will say when we first had him, and he's, this little puppy.
Speaker 2:It didn't fit at all, it did not. we're calling him King and he's just like this Floppy little puppy tripped on three weeks He's 75 pounds and you're like, oh, there it is. Yes.
Speaker 1:So, anyways, we kept the tradition alive. So I'm really excited about that and I think it fits him really well now. Yeah, it does as cute as King is. The puppy phase is hard. Yeah, it's a nightmare It's. I would say.
Speaker 2:Those you know, those first, like Few weeks in the puppy stage, are far harder than the newborn phase it is in part of what made it so hard, i feel like is Jace's six, now Carter's four, so there's legitimately four years since we've had to care for a newborn, but it's just as much work with a puppy.
Speaker 1:But I think it's harder. Well, for a few reasons. One we decided to get him in the middle of winter. Yeah, so In those first few weeks you're having to wake up a potty training in the middle of the night, in the middle of winter In Colorado is not fun and for some reason that little butt Decided that every time we took him out in the middle of the night, in the freezing cold, that he wanted to us to literally chase him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, didn't listen at all. And even unless he was on his leash, you could not get him back inside the house.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and he would go and eat all the rocks. Yeah and it was just.
Speaker 2:It was really frustrating constantly taking things out of his mouth, constantly worried about throw-up and diarrhea.
Speaker 1:It is just like having a Baby and he's pooping and peeing everywhere until we got him potty trained and at least with a kid You can slap a diaper on him.
Speaker 2:Yep, this one's just lots of messes, lots of paper towels, so make sure, if you're planning on getting a dog, you consider this? yes, cuz I mean, we did consider this, That's why we waited, but you don't know, you don't know right, but we weren't quite Ready for the level of what kills me is we watched him like a hawk and he still managed to eat things that we didn't know he was eating.
Speaker 1:And I still, to this day, i don't understand how he ate certain things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like. So he had been having stomach problems and we could not figure it out And we thought it was because we just changed his food. And we're smart enough to know that if you dress or like change their food quickly without like slowly getting them accustomed to it, they'll have stomach issues. So we switched them back to his original food and that seemed to clear things up until I was walking him one day and I thought he had a little bit of a hanger, Like he went to the bathroom but something didn't make it all the way out and I just assumed that he needed some help. So I was trying to help him in. This very stretchy blue. Blue object was coming out of him. Thankfully it was coming out of him whole and intact and nothing serious happened. Somehow within seconds he had gotten loose upstairs, found a scrunchie and ate it.
Speaker 1:I have no idea when he would have done this, but it had to have been pretty early on, because he started having stomach issues and this lasted for a long time.
Speaker 2:A month or two. Yeah and I But he was still eating and drinking and doing everything like normal. So if you'd take him to the vet or call the vet, they'd say everything looks good, he's eating and drinking.
Speaker 1:There were a few times where he had some serious issues. There was like blood in the stool, there was throwing up. There was a few times where he went to eat and we didn't know if it was like we were giving him those bully sticks. And we had invested a lot of money into this puppy already and he's having these major issues And we were worried for a few reasons And so it was scary to not know. And as soon as you pulled that out, michael actually kept it and brought it home to show me.
Speaker 2:Well, maybe you wanted to keep it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, those are those keepsakes I really hold on to. But I'm like I'm glad that you did, because I don't know if I would have believed it if you had just told me, because it wasn't just like this little tiny scrunchie.
Speaker 2:It was like one of those obnoxious ones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, those big ones that people wear on their wrist. For, like you know, i had an accessory, but he, yeah, his poor little tummy, had to work that out for a month or so And then, ever since then, he's been great, thank goodness.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been significantly better since then. So watch him like a hawk, because it takes seconds.
Speaker 1:Just like a child. So because we were having, you know, dealing with the potty training and him eating everything, he unfortunately could not be just roaming around the house, even though you and I were home all day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like we said, it's just like a toddler. So we had to get a baby cage and just throw them in there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i mean not that we threw our kids in a baby cage, but I did when you weren't looking. But we just if we could not have eyes on him constantly, we had to put him in this And we felt really bad about this.
Speaker 2:The only place we could fit. it was like the center of our living room, so it wasn't like hey, go upstairs or be in the room where you know you're just gonna sleep. He had people walking by the cage all day long.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and he was just. There was so much crying and whining and barking because he just wanted to be playing with us and how? But unfortunately we had to have him in there And we would I mean, obviously he wasn't in there constantly, but if we couldn't be watching him 100%, and that was hard. But as soon as we, you know we'll get to this, we'll be talking to the trainer And he was like, no, this is what they need.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as soon as a professional tells you this is what I do and you're doing he has way more freedom than my dog at home I was like ooh.
Speaker 1:But it was kind of nice because I was like, okay, we're not torturing our brand new puppy.
Speaker 2:And you don't know like there's. like, at this point we just think we have a new furry baby. So we're not sure how much attention is too much or not enough, or really what we're doing, and we're still trying to raise two kids the whole time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but while we, once the kids went to bed, he got all the cuddles and all the attention. He was in the bed with me all night until we went to bed, and so he did get lots of love and play in the backyard and stuff.
Speaker 2:And he got tons of attention, treats and he was well taken care of, i promise.
Speaker 1:Yeah, although he couldn't have any toys or blankets or anything in the crate Cause he would eat them. He would. I can't even remember how many beds and blankets we went through that first few weeks.
Speaker 2:Yep, we spent more on beds than we did food.
Speaker 1:And eventually Michael's. Like that's it, you're just sleeping on the floor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like you've blown, it.
Speaker 1:You had your chances. I still don't give them beds. You know what, though? He's one of those dogs that's like always hot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he wants to be on the cold floor by the window or something the entire time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so he'd pick up the bed and just lay under it anyway. So I don't really feel bad about that, but I also think that it was kind of hard for him. I think Dewey did a little bit of taunting.
Speaker 2:Definitely.
Speaker 1:Cause he just has free room of the house And the dynamic between those two is the weirdest thing.
Speaker 2:It is so funny to watch. I don't know why you get on Dewey's case all the time. He saw a puppy who was not listening to dad and had to chase him around in the backyard And that was unacceptable to Dewey.
Speaker 1:You guys will have to go onto our Instagram. We're gonna post a photo of our two dogs And you can see the size difference. Dewey has deemed himself a sheepdog, yep, and he literally will run around chasing King. Now King thinks that they're playing. Yeah. And Dewey has a completely different idea of what's happening And he just chases after him and he literally bites. And takes for little legs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, And King just wants to play and hang out and Dewey just wants nothing Of it, like he's, like, this is not what we're here for, and so if and now, we don't really have that problem. King is trained and so he listens, but before, if he didn't listen, dewey just went after him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he got really upset.
Speaker 1:He was, and but so anyways, it's been nine months that we've had King now, and Dewey has still not gotten used to King.
Speaker 2:It's not bad, like he's completely tolerates King, like they both hang out with me in my office at work all day and there's no like fighting or anything like that. But Dewey still gets a little nervous with King's size whenever King comes around, because King's a lot bigger than him. So he will growl a little bit and prefers not to have anything to do with him, if he can.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i don't think it's the size, i think it's the just he's like you're mine.
Speaker 2:It's the jealousy. That's what it is.
Speaker 1:Because he's not like nervous, he's not backing away or anything. He's moving towards King growling like you, better back up Yeah. I have claimed, i have claimed him.
Speaker 2:But that's what's funny about Dewey too, and like the dynamics between dogs, is them getting along and figuring out how to get along, and it's it's more like Dewey's aware of like timeline, like in Dewey's mind he gets to cuddle with me at night and King's time is during the day. So that's what upsets Dewey the most is with King, tries to cuddle at night. He's like that's my time.
Speaker 1:Dewey also has taught King quite a few bad habits. It's some some all of Dewey's bad habits, which is basically everything Dewey does. How dare you.
Speaker 2:Not my angel.
Speaker 1:Yes, he, king, barks at everything now, everything. It kills me. He's like doing that kicky thing with his legs and like just digging up our backyard. Mm hmm. So yeah, every time King does, every time my perfect King does something he's not supposed to do, it, it's Dewey's fault.
Speaker 2:Dewey could be in the other room like nowhere. Sleeping is like. He got that from Dewey.
Speaker 1:I mean he did. It doesn't matter that Dewey's sleeping now.
Speaker 2:But to curb some of Dewey's bad habits. We knew that we had this big dog and from the beginning that we wanted to get some professional training for him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i think one of our main things before we decided to get King was that one we needed to be ready to immediately put him into professional training. Mm, hmm. And I wanted to be able to get him like, have it in our budget to get him groomed regularly, because I knew we weren't going to just be able to throw him in our bathtub and wash him.
Speaker 2:Like we do with Dewey.
Speaker 1:Yes, so with the training, we had a neighbor who went through a program called sit mean sit Mm, hmm. And their dog is amazing, so well trained. Yeah. And so we really looked into that program and I'm so glad we did.
Speaker 2:It's the best decision I think we have made in a long time. So we made a lot of impulsive decisions when getting King, but this was like a planned out one And I'm just going to be honest. Like I think it's the most important part. If you're deciding to get a dog, be honest with yourself, like especially if you have kids, like you're not going to put in the full amount of time it takes to train them properly At least, i don't think you are, unless you are that person. But we are not those people.
Speaker 1:We are not those people. Even though we got him professionally trained the upkeep of it, we have not been.
Speaker 2:It's so hard.
Speaker 1:It is so hard, but since he has that amazing foundation, it doesn't take too much work for us to get him back up to par. Yeah, and there's just some things that just naturally stuck that he just listens to, like you can tell him to come sit, all those things and he's great. Basically it's just like the barking that we have a hard time with.
Speaker 2:And that's on us. It comes down to like really, that's the most important part about training that we've learned, and even sit means sit. They explain this to you is like I think it's some ridiculous percentage, but the majority of training is you being trained, not the dog.
Speaker 1:Right, it's or equal. You have to train the dog and then they have to sit and train us how to train the dog.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's why he barks at everything is because we aren't training him not to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we just yell at him to shut up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, treat him like a kid Like stop it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but when we so, they come out to your house to do the consultation and they bring their their personal dog with them. So we've met with a few different trainers and they all have their own dog.
Speaker 2:Yep, all different breed, shapes, sizes, everything, which is amazing to me, because in my head, the first dog we saw was Levi, who was a golden retriever, and we're just like, oh they, golden retrievers are easy, so this is what they use, but it's not. They train all dogs.
Speaker 1:So the trainer comes out and is like, basically showing off his dog, about what King could be, and I was like all right, that's it, you take our dog, will take Levi.
Speaker 2:King almost went by by And we'll just call it a day because this dog was incredible. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I mean he's like training this dog in the middle of the street.
Speaker 2:Yep Doing back, flips off his van and stuff like it was nuts.
Speaker 1:All kinds of things that, like dogs, don't need to do, but it was cool that this dog was doing Yep. And I'm like yes, sign me up. How much I take my credit card, i don't care how much.
Speaker 2:Take all my money.
Speaker 1:Just I promise me that you will return my dog like this. So this guy actually was the one who ended up doing our training And he ended up winning like bonuses and stuff.
Speaker 2:Which is unfair. So his company had a program to like encourage their employees So the furthest they could train a dog in the shortest amount of time, basically. And he explained to us that because King was so smart, he blew competition out of the water So he got some unnamed prize that we didn't get a part of.
Speaker 1:We also didn't do the training, we just provided the puppies. I paid him to get a prize. That's true. But we also did get something in return.
Speaker 2:I mean a dog That could have been anything in that prize?
Speaker 1:So King went for his first board and train. So they keep him for seven days, he stays there and they train him daily, and when we brought him back, i mean he was a completely different dog. I was shocked.
Speaker 2:All of my problems were solved.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because there really were. There were so many times that were like what were we thinking? What did we do? I'm pretty sure you asked me on multiple occasions if we could give him back.
Speaker 2:I did Within those first couple months. It was really. It was hard for me I did. I was doing a lot of the training, or fake training, just chasing him around the yard, a lot of the potty training, a lot of the like, waking up every two hours at night when he was sick and everything else, and like on top of the kids and everything else we had going on, i was really considering getting rid of him.
Speaker 1:Well, we knew from the beginning that you would be the main person.
Speaker 2:History has shown that I take care of the animals.
Speaker 1:This is true, but we actually had a conversation about it, knowing, i mean, i think that I agreed to a little bit more than what I actually do. Yeah, But it was still understood that you would be the main.
Speaker 2:I was told you would help take him on walks. How many walks have you taken King on, by yourself?
Speaker 1:I asked this the other day if I should take him and you're like no, you don't have to. How many, i don't know. At one hand, but I have taken the kids on lots of walks. You know what I took him? to be fair, i took him on a few walks and it is incredibly difficult to take him on a walk with just me and the kids.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:He goes crazy. He's so worried about what the kids are doing. Yeah. That it just like it kills my arm and my hand and it's just like it's a struggle the whole time. So that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
Speaker 2:No, and that makes sense. He does go like full protector mode when he's out with the kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he does, but anyway we got him back and fortunately he was just a completely different dog and like, i feel like we were both able to just breathe. But in those moments of wanting to like go back on this decision that we made, Yeah. Fortunately, there were some moments in there where we're like, okay, this is why we got a dog.
Speaker 2:I think the biggest moment for me is I can remember the closest I was to saying, like, call around the neighborhood or whatever and find out if somebody wants a dog. We were legitimately talking about how we were going to just abandon this project in the kitchen and we were only, i don't know, maybe a couple of weeks or a month in at that time and we both look over on the couch and there's this puppy being like smothered by the kids. totally okay with it, not nipping, not biting, just enjoying all the love by these our kids who are sitting there telling us we love King.
Speaker 1:Yes, They were both just like bear, hugging him like King. we love you, You're the best puppy and we were. it literally interrupted our conversation.
Speaker 2:You couldn't have scripted it. It was like a Hallmark movie. I'm just like looking. I was like, of course, this is what we're going to see right now. I was so close to getting rid of him and now he's here forever.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's like exactly what we needed to hear in that moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, another one was playing fetch with them for the first time at the park.
Speaker 1:That was so fun and the kids just thought it was the coolest thing.
Speaker 2:This sounds so silly, but I was convinced we were going to take that leash off him and he was just going to bolt for the street and he didn't And I know this might be normal to people with dogs, but it was new to us and he just fetched the ball, was completely happy and came right back.
Speaker 1:So And now it's like his favorite thing, yep. So he's done one of his training sessions and pretty soon we're coming up. We've got about three months left and then he'll get to do his second one. Yep. And I'm really excited about that because we've been slacking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll get Levi back Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, oh man, i hope so.
Speaker 2:You're just going to pull a switcheroo on us.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So more of the story here is if you end up getting a puppy, like 10 out of 10 recommend professional training because it just takes so much of the stress off it and especially with having kids. That was such an important thing for us And it really has made this a positive experience for us because now he's, there's no play pin, he's just wandering the house.
Speaker 2:Now it's just another member of the family.
Speaker 1:Yeah, And I just I, I love like seeing this big old dog walk around the house like he owns the place.
Speaker 2:With his big dumb smile.
Speaker 1:He does, and, man, you know what's so funny too, just side note, and I'm constantly all day long yelling at the kids to stop jumping on my couch. And the second King gets out into the living room, he's just jumping and running on the couch. Yep, so let's, when we're talking about bad influences.
Speaker 2:I knew it was. The kids kept trying to defend poor, innocent Dewey over here and you're just going at them.
Speaker 1:Or maybe Kings influencing the kids?
Speaker 2:I don't think so. I mean, I'm just hoping that we're going to see some sort of return on this investment still.
Speaker 1:I know you're really banking on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my plan is to somehow get King into the breeding game.
Speaker 1:We decided to hold off on getting him neutered. Neutered.
Speaker 2:And Michael's plan is to get some money back for my time and blood and sacrifice.
Speaker 1:Well, when we got him from the breeder, the breeder told us like, gave us all of his certifications at both of his parents, our show dogs, and he's got this like great bloodline apparently. So he's like Hey, if once he comes to age, do this and you can at least get a free puppy out of it or like up to like $2,000,. she said something like that So now that number keeps ringing in Michael's head.
Speaker 2:It's going to be so awesome And you don't have to take care of any of the puppies. It's just like a in and out 30 minute thing. You can't, you can't give money like that, that easy.
Speaker 1:Poor King doesn't know. He's going to have a full time job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this was I mean. I think he'll enjoy it.
Speaker 1:I think you're right, okay, so I want to know if any of you guys have a puppy and what your experience was like. Are we just, can we not handle?
Speaker 2:Yeah, can we not handle these things Is this completely normal. Is it not normal? Did we do well? Did we do bad?
Speaker 1:Yeah, i mean, it's just like. I think everyone has their own experiences, but I am curious to know what other people's experiences were when bringing a new family dog into your home. So if you guys want to send us an email with your stories, you can reach us at life and mastered podcast at gmailcom. Also, feel free to say hi over on Instagram at life and mastered podcast And, like I said earlier, we'll have pictures there of our pups If you guys want to check those out too. And, as always, if you could please leave us a kind review and a five star rating wherever you listen to podcasts, we would appreciate it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Congratulations.