Ruger Meets The Big Cedars

Meet Ruger. We've had a big weekend. Saturday after a week of anticipation, we went to Boone (3) and Garrett's (5) birthday party in Bolivar and THEN stopped by my Uncle Gene's to pick up our newest member of the Medley Family...Ruger. Ruger is a Brittany and 10 weeks old. Grace and I have been lobbying for a dog for two years now and FINALLY we have him. He's a cutie.

Bryon had been secretly dealing with Gene since Thanksgiving Dinner with the family while Grace and I were oblivious. Two weekends ago the call came and he had a puppy for us if we wanted it. Well, YEAH! Bryon had been wanting a Brittany to try to teach to bird hunt. He's been going a few times a year with the neighborhood guys to Lebanon hunting quail, pheasants and chuckars. They all have dogs. So it was a pretty easy sell that it made sense to get a Brittany but still he was holding out. Then POW, we have a puppy. Bryon didn't get to make the trip down because he and the neighborhood guys all went to Springfield to take a Conceal and Carry Class, great redneck man fun, while Grace and I made the rounds on a snowy Saturday. We had a postman's resolve that nothing was going to keep us from bringing that puppy home!

I took the cat carrier foolishly thinking he'd fit into it. He wouldn't. He's about 15 pounds and mostly belly. He's going to fit in just fine around here. Gene had a box so we plopped him in the box in the back seat next to Grace and we were off like a herd of turtles. He lasted about 5 miles in the box before he was out and stretched across Grace's lap. Our cat Pansy will lounge on Bryon and I but steers clear of Grace. She was delighted beyond words right up until Ruger got carsick and puked up what looked like three days worth of puppy chow all over her lap, the carseat and my car. It was disgusting. I pulled over onto a snowy shoulder and tried to clean the worst of it off with a towel and wet wipes. She took it pretty well considering what a drama queen she usually is. She was rolling with the punches because puke or no she had a DOG ON HER LAP and it was going home!

Ruger did not have a good ride home because it turns out he had a lot more puppy chow in him. Grace later reported that he actually threw up seven times. She should know, she's a good counter.

At one point I looked in the rearview mirror and her eyes were dreamy and heavy and I said, are you sleepy Grace and she said, "No I am not. I am happy." just like that. And she was. And she is.

Let me tell you, that dog was stinky BEFORE he puked and Grace was in the back seat tooting the whole way home because every 10 minutes she was like, "Sorry I tooted." Between the stinky dog, the puke and the tooting my car was a rolling stink bomb. Luckily Bryon was home when we arrived and EVERYONE got a bath. It was a rude welcome for Ruger but it was the only way he was getting into the house. Bryon scrubbed him down and fluffed him up and he spent the rest of the evening sniffing out every corner, driving Pansy out of her mind and peeing on three rooms of carpet.

Bedtime mercifully came and we put him in a crate in the entry way with a blanket, a squeaky duck and said goodnight. He continued to say goodnight for about three hours until Bryon had finally had enough and went upstairs to the craft room to sleep. I came up after him and suggested that the DOG could go upstairs instead and we shut him in the upstairs bathroom where we could barely hear him anymore: the dog, not Bryon. He cried until he wore himself out. When Grace did that as a newborn he stayed up in the chair all night with her on his chest. Not so much for the dog. He got Ferberized right away.

Tonight, after a long day of playing, a big walk and lots of family time, he's upstairs in the bathroom with nary a peep out of him. I'm hopeful tomorrow night he can come back downstairs. We'll see. It's still a long time til morning and tomorrow is a school day but for now we are all having puppy dreams.