Our newest adventure...

It's been a rough start but we'd like to officially introduce to everyone our newest addition...

Sir Finnegan de Paris (or Finn as we call him)

Bringing Finn home!

Over the last year, Guy and I have been talking at length about getting a dog. We started talking about it more after we accepted the offer with International Paper. When we looked at houses we tried to look for something that had a fenced in yard where we could get a dog. We had originally talked about getting a golden retriever through the rescue but we found out over the fourth of July that we weren't able to adopt one because we live too far outside of the Dallas Metroplex. So after being disappointed we decided that we would continue searching. Probably 2 days after we found out about the golden I saw an Australian Shepherd and the thought process went something like, "what's wrong with one of those?" Guy was driving back to Texas after having spent the weekend with me and he agreed it wouldn't be a bad idea. The only condition was that as an active dog if we went the puppy route I would have to agree to be home full time taking care of it. This wasn't that big of a deal since we were already talking about me staying home for a while.

We both started doing some research looking for where they were, how old any puppies were, when we could get a puppy, training, etc. I found some in Southeastern Iowa. Guy found one in Paris. We talked to the breeders about holding the puppies until August when I got down to be with Guy, but they didn't want to. I also wanted Guy and I to both meet the puppy before we picked one out. We talked about it, prayed about it and decided that we wanted to get the Red Tri colored Australian Shepherd. The only problem became timing. Guy isn't able to keep a puppy with his work schedule and I don't have a lot of time to come down. The short of it came down to if we wanted to get this red tri- then I either needed to come down the 9th of July or the 15th of July. Since I start necropsies the 18th we figured it was best if I came down over the 9th and that way we had a week roughly to get him adjusted to his new home before I was really gone for most of the day.

Road trip back to Iowa

That being said it was a whirlwind in timing to get him. I left right after work on Friday for Paris. I got to Texas Saturday morning (2 am). We went and looked at puppies Saturday night, picked the one we wanted; and I drove back with him Sunday morning (July 10). It was a whirlwind of a trip! Our poor puppy was pretty stressed. The day before we got him he had gotten his puppy shots, then we took him to a new home away from his littermates and then I drove him back to Iowa. The first night we got him, he threw up 4 or 5 times. He also had diarrhea pretty much non-stop. I made the drive back to Ames with only one minor accident. He was such a trooper!! He slept most of the way!! Sadly, after all the stress he had stopped pooping diarrhea and was pooping blood. I called the emergency vet when I got back to Ames. He thought it was fine to wait until the next morning to bring him in. I brought him in Monday for some tests. We found out he tested slightly positive for Parvo (could be due to the vaccination Friday) but since he was lethargic we decided to treat it anyway. We left the vet's office with: antacid medication, antibiotic, anti-nausea and a probiotic. After taking the medicine he started to do much better! At least until Wednesday. Wednesday nigh he started having diarrhea again and being a little lethargic. Thursday he was still having diarrhea and he threw up a few times. I called the vet again and she said bring him back in. We wanted to make sure it was nothing serious and that we didn't have to hospitalize him.

Taking the medicine

Learning to walk on a leash

On Friday the vet retested for Parvo (negative this time!!), took X-rays to make sure there was nothing else going on intestinally (clear except for some organic material like sticks and leaves) and decided that we should deworm him again just to be safe. She thought that the raw hide might have contributed but he shouldn't be throwing up since he's on an anti-nausea medication. So after leaving the vet again, we have additional drugs for him to take.