Our latest addition: Hans

I had talked with Kevin about how Sadie and Minnie are getting too old to go on hikes with me.  While they do fine around the river with walks under four miles, they clearly hurt when the hike is longer.  It's not fair to them to push them beyond their limits.  They are 12 and 10 years old respectively and they won't live forever.  Kevin agreed that I can get two more dogs to train them as hiking dogs in the next year while the pack is still intact.

A Facebook friend shared a post of nine shepherd-mix pups found in the desert.  By the time the woman contacted me about the pups, three had already been adopted.  I was looking for a male, to round out the sexes in the pack.  The male I wanted was already taken and I didn't want a pup that looked like a terrier.  Inquiries to local rescues and shelters all proved useless.  No one was answering me and the one shelter that always has GSDs to euthenize, the Maricopa County Animal Control Center (MCACC) where I got Minnie eight years ago, has a lottery system now for potential adopters who must make an appointment two weeks out (!) to just see specific animals.  And what if that animal turns out not to be what one is hoping it would be?

So fast forward to this afternoon, when a co-worker texted me that she was picking up a litter of purebred German Shepherd Dog pups and asked if I was interested in a boy.  Oh my, of course I was, yes yes yes!  An older man in Benson was getting rid of his pups as he was getting too old to tend to dogs and my coworker drove to town to get the entire litter.

An hour later she texted me back saying she has the dogs and I could come over.  She didn't have to tell me that twice.

She handed me the first of three male pups.  That first pup immediately took to me and I didn't even look at the other ones.  Hans was freshly bathed but still had that puppy smell I had missed so much.  He was born on  February 28.

An hour later I was back home.  Kevin was on the patio and also seemed happy to have a pup.  Hans seemed to take to him, too.  And when I returned from my dog walk with the pack, he was in bed with Hans!  He wanted Hans to sleep with us. I drew the line there, because pups will wake up every 90 minutes or so to poop or pee and I do not want to be rolling in puppy poop at night.  I took him outside every time he woke up, and when he peed I put him back in his crate for the rest of the night.

I should have stopped by the store for puppy chow.  I fed him cat kibble and he barfed that up.  My Chewy.com order for Blue Buffalo Puppy formula chicken and rice will take a week to get here.

My days will now be busy, but what better time to devote to training a dog than now?  Hans won't be ready to hit the trails until he's six months old, and then only for a few miles.  Sadie was six months old when she went on her first hike.

So far the dogs seem disinterested and I hope it stays that way until Hans is a little bigger and can fend for himself.  Hopefully Sadie and Minnie will live long enough to teach Hans the ropes.  I jokingly posted on Facebook that I have cancelled all hikes for the next six months and will just lay in bed with my new pup.  He already has those soulful eyes of a German Shepherd Dog.

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