Meet Eddie

This is my new baby, Eddie. He's a year and a half old and weighs about 27 pounds.

I've been thinking about getting another dog for a year or two, but it's one of those things that I had always put to the back of my mind. Some conversations and events this week caused me to start thinking about it a little more seriously. I was looking on Petfinder.com last night for dogs that the local rescues had for adoption and saw this picture that looked so much like Copper that it was uncanny (I'm not sure how long this link will work since he is adopted now).

The rescue that was caring for Eddie is usually at PetSmart on Saturdays, so I took the chance that he might be there and he was. He instantly came up to me wagging his tail when I walked up to his pen and he just stared at me the whole time, no matter where I walked to. The man who was fostering him was there, so I was able to ask him all about Eddie. He assured me that he is great with cats and kids and is just a sweet little boy. We walked around the store together and got to know one another. He was very easy to fall in love with, so he came home with me.

I brought him into the backyard first and let him check it out and get the message that it is where he needs to do his business (he is already housetrained, but I figure that it doesn't hurt to reinforce!). After a few minutes I brought Copper out, too, so they could sniff each other over. Copper had the hair sticking up on her back for a few minutes, but she quickly got used to him. For the most part they seem to know that the other is there, but they aren't too interested.

When we came in the house, I braced myself for the real scene... how would he react to Coal? And how would Coal react to him? I still remember the first night with Copper. She was in her crate in the living room while Coal and I were in the bedroom. Coal refused to even stay in the same room as Copper, instead opting to sit in the bedroom and hiss (and he is really not much of a hisser). It took four days before he would be in the same room with the puppy.

Luckily, this was not the case this time. Coal was a little wary of Eddie, and Eddie just carefully sniffed at Coal, but neither of them made much of a scene. They've both had numerous opportunities to check each other over and it seems to be a non-issue... what a relief!

I had to go back up to PetSmart after a call telling me that they forgot to give me his rabies vaccination certification, so I took both dogs with me. After dinner I took them both for a walk around the neighborhood and now we are all sacked out for the evening.

Afterall, it has been a very long, exciting day for the whole family!