And… We Have a Puppy!

So, last week I hinted that I had a bit of an announcement to make on the blog this week that we had spent a fair chunk of money on… and the surprise is:

We got a puppy!

On Friday last week, my husband, his daughter and I piled all in to the car and took a day trip to the breeder to pick up our baby Bernese Mountain Dog.  Needless to say, we were all very, very excited to pick him up, and the process of getting him home was actually pretty smooth.  I was worried he’d pee all over the car, but we made a couple stops and were able to walk him around enough that we escaped that potential mess.

So, without any further ado, here is Bentley (aka Little Big Dog):

He is a purebred Bernese Mountain Dog, so with that came a bit of a steep price tag… Add in to that all the puppy paraphernalia that is “required” and there goes that dog fund we had saved up…  So far, we have done 2 trips to visit the breeder (though I pulled that money from the travel fund) which adds up to near $600 in ferry costs and gas… We’ve spent about $200 on food, collars, crate, toys, bowls, etc.  And the puppy himself was $1600… So, before we even get to going to the first vet appointment and getting all his shots and such, we have already spent $2400 easily (good thing I increased the dog fund from $1000 to $2500).  Yup, that dog fund that we have been saving has been pretty much spent, and so now I just have to decide if I keep the remaining amount in a pet emergency fund, or if I get pet insurance for him…

Time to review all of Des’ research and experience with pet insurance.  I’m leaning towards making my own pet fund for “pet insurance” so that we can cover any of the three pets with one payment (we still have Big Cat and Little Cat)… But, then again… A friend of mine pointed out that getting insurance for the dog will prevent any really hard decisions to be made or arguments if her boyfriend doesn’t agree with spending some exorbitant amount to get a medical procedure for their dog.  So there is a conversation to be had… And, you know what? I’ll probably save all that for another post…

For the rest of this post, let’s just discuss the cute little bundle of fur.  Okay, not really that little… but still cute and a fluffy ball of fur.  (I keep having that line from the Despicable Me movie run through my head when I see him – “It’s so fluffy I’m gonna die!”)

It’s so funny, I haven’t exactly been keeping up my blogging schedule (as I predicted would be the case), but when I logged on to the computer to read some blogs and write this post, I read that Penny over at “She Picks Up Pennies” also got a puppy on Friday last week and it was funny hearing that their experiences somewhat mirror ours for the first few nights… We are attempting to crate train Bentley, and he’s not so impressed by that, and so we are all running on less sleep than normal because of it.  It’s so hard not to give in to him when he’s so darn cute…

Also, puppies don’t like to sit still for very long… so getting clear, non-blurry pictures of him doing anything other than sleeping is near impossible… So, sleeping photos you get…

Okay, I better go because he is making that whimpering sound that seems to mean he needs to pee… and I really don’t want to have to clean up another accident.

Are we crazy?

(don’t worry, I already know the answer to that…)

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