A New Puppy!

Is this face adorable or what?

He is four months old.

Silly puppy. This is one of his favorite positions to relax in. Our big boys get a kick out of the different crazy ways he lies around, sometimes twisting his upper body in the opposite direction from his lower body.

Our first dog, Elvis, is not very hospitable to the new kid. Elvis will let him lie near him, but he doesn't yet want the new kid touching him and he certainly doesn't want to play with him.

So, you've seen the photos, now I'll tell you his story. I saw that one of my friends had posted on Facebook that she had a black Lab puppy that she needed to find a good home for. Needless to say, I, a black Lab lover, quickly jumped to attention. I asked her some questions and then asked for 24 hours to convince my hesitant husband that this puppy needed us. That was a Tuesday.

Wednesday, when I spoke with my husband on his lunch break, he still wasn't completely convinced, but he was softening. To be quite honest, I had a few reservations myself, but at the same time, I really wanted this puppy.

Finally, Wednesday evening my husband and I were talking and had just decided we would take the puppy, when the phone rang. It was my friend wanting to touch base with me about the puppy and see if we had made a decision. She was both thrilled and relieved that we would take the puppy. She said she knew we would give him a good home. She asked when we wanted to pick him up. (My gut reaction was "I'll be right over.") However, Wednesday evening Nicholas has drum lessons, so we really didn't have time. So we said we'd pick him up Thursday evening.

I kept telling Elvis on Thursday that he needed to prepare to welcome his new little brother that evening. Nicholas said to me, at one point in the afternoon, "You're really excited to get this puppy tonight, aren't you, Mom? You keep talking about Elvis getting a little brother." I just smiled.

Finally, after dinner Thursday evening, we all got into the car and headed to my friend's house to pick up the puppy. Of course, I fell in love with him as soon as he came bounding up to us when we arrived.

We spent quite a bit of time there catching up with each other, as we hadn't seen each other for a while, and, of course, she was telling us what she knew about the puppy. She said that she had helped her oldest daughter raise a black Lab for the Seeing Eye Foundation and that the dog they raised for that had left them three months ago. She missed him and decided she wanted another black Lab, so she got this puppy. However, the day she brought this puppy home, Seeing Eye called and told her that she would be getting the dog they raised back because he had failed as a Seeing Eye dog because he was afraid of and distracted by other dogs. (When you raise and train a dog for Seeing Eye, if it fails, it becomes your dog to keep.) Well, she had two other small dogs and two cats in her home already, so she didn't feel that it was a good idea to keep this puppy. She had only had the puppy for a week, when we got him.

She said that the lady, who had him before her, had only had the puppy for 2 months and that he was about 4 months old. She said he is a purebred black Lab but he has no papers. She said the lady, who had him before her, had not had him in the house, but kept him outside. She said that he hadn't had any shots, that the previous lady had wormed him. She said that when she had gotten him, he had fleas, and she had treated him for that. She said that he was very calm, and we noticed, while we were there, he played with one of the other dogs for a while and then lay down and went to sleep on the floor. So we brought him home to our house on Thursday evening.

On the drive home, we tried to come up with a name for him. First, we tried to think of a good name that went with the fact that he was black, and the best we could come up with was when Anthony said, "Well, we could call him "Shadow", but that's pretty generic." So then we decided to think about his personality. We decided that he was quite calm, so we tried to think of a word that meant calm that we could use as a name but didn't like anything we came up with. Finally, Duane said I should go on the computer when we get home and look up names that mean "calm".
That's what I did. However, we didn't like any of those names, so Duane said, "What about names that mean 'gentle' since calm and gentle were very similar." So I punched that into Google and found one that we liked, "Gentry". So, we took a vote, would it be "Shadow" or "Gentry" and "Gentry" won. So Gentry it is (pronounced "jen tree").

Then yesterday, he was so calm and he lay around so much I began to worry. Also, he didn't drink much or go to potty as much as most puppies, so I began to suspect dehydration. So, we
took him to the vet. I told our vet everything I know about Gentry, and he gave him a thorough examination. He said that Gentry's temperature is normal, that he is hydrated and that he has no fleas. He verified that Gentry is, indeed, four months old. He gave him one shot and said he wants to see him again in three or four weeks, which works well because Elvis is due for his annual exam, and we can take the two of them together. He told me that Gentry was going to be a good dog and told me that I should not hesitate to keep him.

Gentry has been so good. He did show one problem that I need to get worked out as soon as possible, and that is that he has done his business twice in the house instead of outside. I started to think about possible reasons for this behavior and thought that, maybe, he doesn't want to do that when he's on a leash and we've been taking him out on the leash all of the time so far, as we haven't had time to really take him out into the backyard without a leash and having to keep an eye on him to be sure he doesn't run off. Also, we have to provide him with puppy chew items as today he carried off one of my new sneakers and was going to chew it up. He also tried to chew up one of Zeb's Lego men. He's very good about letting these items go as soon as you take them from him and tell him "no". He is already beginning to respond to his name too.

Finally, my friend who gave Gentry to us, called this morning to see how things are going. As we talked, she agreed that his problem with doing his business outside is probably from being on the leash because she said she had never had him on a leash and neither did the lady who had him before her. She laughed when I told her how worried I was about his being so calm that he mostly just lies around all day. She said that's how he was at her house. She said he seems to just follow whatever any other dog(s) he is with do(does). She said that the one dog she had would play with him a little bit, but then let him know she was done. She also said that while he was with them, they had gone away for two days and had left him with a friend who has a chocolate Lab, and that lady said that he had run around and played with the chocolate Lab the whole time he was there. Then my friend said that she had asked a lot of questions and was very particular about what she wanted when she was looking to get a black Lab puppy. She said that she said that she wanted one that would get fairly large and that was calm and quiet, and believe me, Gentry fits these requests so far. We'll wait and see about the "large" part, but he is already not much shorter than our older Lab and his paws are quite large. I will have no problem with this as I love large dogs. I would love to have a Great Dane someday.

I'm sorry for the long post, but I wanted to share Gentry's whole story so far and to show you photos. I also apologize if you're not much of a dog person and, therefore, didn't enjoy this post, and, so I will give fair warning that I will most likely post updates as Gentry grows.