Bringing In A New Pet - Part 1

I remember 10 years ago when we brought home our first child, we had to introduce our daughter to our "original child" our shetland sheepdog, Jasmine. I brought home a blanket and hat with the baby's scent on it and snuggled with the 8 year old dog that we had doted on since we got her.

When my wife and daughter were to come home, my wife went in first and spent some time with Jasmine, then I came in with our new baby. Almost instantly, Jasmine became the baby's bodyguard and we had a fairly seamless transition.

Years have passed and Jasmine is no longer with us. We now have two cats (Simba and Nala), a bunny (Josie), and tomorrow we will be bringing home a 4 month old puppy, Holly. Time to call on the experience 10 years ago.

When you are an animal person, you can never have enough animals around you. My family and I are animal people. My wife fosters and rescues small woodland creatures, the girls and I work on a miniature horse farm in our spare times, we have eight different bird feeders in our yard, we hand feed the squirrels on our deck, and we all can't get enough of Animal Planet. Although we all love dogs, and I have been campaigning hard for one for almost two years now, there is that concern of how the 4 year old cats will respond. It was their house first.

So, for the past 3 or 4 weeks I have been combing the Internet looking for the best sites and videos to help with this transition and to ensure that the transition will be successful. I love my cats, but I REALLY want the dog.

Between my wife and I, we have had enough animal experience to make this successful. This will be a wonderful family project, that I think will also make for a good series of blogs to journal our progress. However, I am not naive enough to think that this is going to go as well as it did with the baby and Jasmine. It will take patience, time, and teamwork to make it happen. A fun family challenge.

So this is the introduction of a series of blogs that will follow from time to time, reporting on our progress, our successes, and our attempts that could have gone better - remember, Edison did not believe in failure, just ways things didn't work. =)

Wish us luck and look for future entries of our weekly series "Bringing in a New Pet."

Why my wife puts up with me, is a mystery even Dan Brown, with the help of Holmes and Watson couldn't crack. =)