So, something happened yesterday that was unplanned, but also kind of sort of planned.

About a month ago, we decided that it was time to start looking for a new dog. The house has been too quiet and everyone felt like it was time to start the search for a new furbaby.

Well, COVID has made adopting a dog incredibly more difficult.

Most breed specific rescues (and most other rescues) aren’t accepting applications, have had a massive influx of applications and/or don’t have enough manpower to get to every applicant. I guess people went and adopted dogs (and cats) at the start of pandemic because they’re alone in their house and probably bored.

While this is all well and good, I just hope the animals stay with those people and don’t end up back in a shelter when life resumes – whenever that might be. That being said, most breed specific rescues weren’t accepting applications. We wanted to look at Golden Retrievers or Labrador Retrievers, but any of the local(ish) rescues weren’t taking new applicants.

We searched on PetFinder and found a few cute dogs, but nothing that really screamed at us.

Then that changed with these two little puppies in a shelter in VA. We applied, and never heard back. We sent follow up emails, never heard back and one by one all the dogs we wanted to check out were taken off the website, unavailable. They couldn’t be bothered to email back, and once our top pick was removed from the website, we moved on.

Then we came across two other little puppies – little Lab Mixes. We applied to that rescue and pretty much got immediately approved. Then we learned that they were having a sort of Open House Adoption Event and we decided we’d go to check it out.

We also applied to another rescue for a little Lab Mix as well as a Shepherd Mix – we’ll be passing on those dogs, if by some chance we’re approved.

But that leads me to today (as I’m writing this, yesterday – Sunday – for those of you reading this today). We almost didn’t go to the Open House Adoption Event. The two little dogs that had caught our eyes were gone prior to it happening, and we really didn’t think there’d be a puppy there for us.

Boy were we ever wrong.

We showed up and saw these two little black puppies – roughly 3 months old, both boys. One of the volunteers handed one of them to my mom, and he settled into her hold, but when she handed him to me…all the bones and muscles in that dog melted and he almost immediately sacked out in my arms.

He chose us.

And that’s how all my plans to do work on Sunday, fell away and we bought a puppy.

We brought him home, gave him a new name – Codigo (he was Samson) – bought him some food, a collar and a few other things.

It’s interesting having a puppy in the house – one with absolutely no training at all. He appears to be very smart, and he’s very food motivated. We need to work on that because he gets himself into a frenzy around food, but thankfully isn’t territorial or aggressive when it comes to it. We went on a short walk, and for having never been on a leash or harness before, he did really well. No tugging and by the end of it, he was walking besides me, constantly looking at me for cues. He met some of the neighborhood dogs and there weren’t any issues – a little barking, but no aggression.

I’m really excited to have him and to watch him grow and become comfortable in his home.

I’ll be honest. It’s strange having a dog in the house that’s our dog. I love this little man and he owns my heart, but he makes me miss my old man who passed last year. Charlie was a phenomenal dog and I do still wish he were here.

I’m excited to start this new chapter with Codigo and it’s going to be fun – and probably exhausting until he’s potty trained. Y’all, I just Googled, “how long does it take to potty train a puppy” and I got FOUR TO SIX MONTHS. Charlie was already housebroken when we got him, so that was never an issue. Jfc.

Okay, well sleep is going to suck for the next few months, I guess.

But anyways, I wanted to do this post to introduce you all to Codigo! He’s adorable, with little gremlin ears and like I said, he owns my heart.