You guys, we got a dog! I had a whole post that was actually scheduled to go live today about how I wanted a dog but was scared but needed to take chances and do more things that scare me. I’ve paused the post because this weekend MM and I went to look for a pup and found this stray sweetheart!
MM and I had been talking about a dog for a long time but both having not grown up with pups, were both excited and scared about it. So we didn’t do anything for a while except talk about how fun a dog would be and dog sit for friend’s dogs whenever we had the chance. Our apartment has a nice yard and MM is in grad school so our hours are very different, meaning if there’s a good time to get a dog, it might be now.
On Sunday we decided to look up adoptions in the area and saw that outside the Petco in Union Square there would be a mobile adoption of dogs from the Animal Care & Control of NYC (AC&C) and then also we could visit the ASPCA on the UES to see other dogs. We headed to Union Square first and played with a few pups from the AC&C that were outside but then I spotted Rain and he was just the sweetest! He was so quiet and calm, came up to us for attention and we took to him immediately. We played with Rain, played with other dogs and then kept going back to Rain. We were SO nervous about taking the leap but I figured whenever we get a dog it’s going to be scary and eventually we’d just have to DO IT and figure it out as we go so we decided to just go for it!
We totally fell in love with this scruffball and after deciding to adopt him, he was ours within an hour. The top photo is us right after signing the papers. Our first stop was Petco where we dropped $$$$ on who knows what and then he came home with us to the UWS.
Naming him was no easy task. The name Rain was made up by the shelter and he had only been there for about 10 days. So after hours of debate and literally hundreds of texts from friends we landed on Oliver Brady Shapelson (shout out to Julia for the Oliver part!). Oliver is just a cute name (and I love the movie Oliver and Company about a stray and he’s an orphan like Oliver Twist [upon further investigation Oliver & Co is based on Oliver Twist, all coming full circle]) Brady is because we liked the name PLUS MM’s a Patriots fan and I’m a Michigan fan and a connection of those two is Tom Brady. Shapelson’s the combo of our last names. We call him Ollie.
It’s our first dog and we’re learning as we go. Because he is a stray we don’t know much about him. What we know is that he is a Cairn Terrier mix of some sort (possibly a Westie in there), he’s about 4 and he’s pretty calm so far. We start a training class tonight, we’ll visit a vet and we’ll get our little guy groomed. Hope you guys like dogs because you’re going to be seeing a lot of Ollie on this blog! If you see us around the city, please come say hi!
Our first picture together. I texted this one to my mom with “We might get this dog…”
Riding home to the UWS!
Getting comfy in his new home
