In the past, Nate and I did not have the best luck with pets. Our last attempt with Banjo, our hound dog puppy, ended with a re-homing and a rental property that needed some repairs! He was too big for the girls and my patience wore thin quickly.
So, I was very hesitant when Nate started searching for another dog; but I was willing nonetheless, I couldn't be selfish forever. It took us a solid year to find the right breed, the right situation, the right price, and the right time! All things aligned when Nate found two German Short-haired Pointers (GSP) out at the base in Ft. Carson. The husband had deployed and two young children and two young dogs became too much for the wife. She wanted to re-home her two GSPs to a family.
And yes, I said two pups!
We took the 90 minute drive up to Ft. Carson to meet our soon-to-be family additions.
Nalla (2 year-old brown pup) and Drake (1 year-old white with black spots) made themselves at home in no time at all! The original owner insisted that they come as a package deal. We...rather I, was not overly excited about having two full-grown dogs in our house. Going from zero to two would be a big deal!
We couldn't even get them to stay in the back! (As you can see, Elizabeth didn't mind!)
As soon as we got home we had a friend come over to teach us a few things about training dogs. Dan Gullickson gave us quite a few pointers (no pun intended) including, how to discourage the behavior you see in the following photo! The training is going relatively well. They are getting better and better at walking on leash. They are amazing with all kids and have fallen into our routine nicely. They were not previously crate trained, but we put them in the laundry room and they do really well!
After a week of deliberating, we decided to rename the dogs.
They are known as Cash and June!
One of my stipulations was that the dogs had to be house-broken. Since I work from home, guess who gets to clean-up after dogs during the potty-training time! It would have been me, but these two were housebroken already!
And the girls adore them!
Elizabeth took to the dogs right away!
While Nate was on vacation, we took the girls and the dogs up to a quite trail in the mountains. It was a chilly, but fun adventure for all of us.
And now we are one BIG happy family...all SIX of us!
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