First of all, to all 2 of you reading this, don’t freak out that I actually wrote and posted something. I am as SHOCKED as you are! I should really do better.. maybe this will be the start to a new era of blogging.

Just don’t hold your breath.

So… we got a dog. She is the sweetest, most adorable, nearly perfectly well behaved doggie ever.

Now, I am not a dog person. I am a cat person. I love a kitty who will come sit on my lap and snuggle away, and then generally take care of themselves the rest of the time. Cats are for the low maintenance household. Dogs on the other hand… well, they take a bit more work.

My husband James though, now he’s a dog person at heart. Sure he loves our cats Ender and Valentine just fine, but deep down, he has really wanted a dog. And since we moved to Colorado from Virginia, to a house that has a fenced in back yard….. well, the hints have been dropped.

However, *I* am the one who is at home all day, *I* would be the one that would have to watch after her, take her out, and generally deal with her for the majority of the time. So.. it was kind of me that had to sign off on it. I wasn’t eager to.

But all summer long, every time I saw a dog… my heart melted a little inside. “DOGGIE ALERT!” I would say to Jocelyn, if she was with me, and she would join me in looking at/going over to/gushing over/petting/loving up said dog.

Then one day, after Saturday brunch at our favorite weekend brunch place, I said to James (KNOWING IN MY HEART WHAT THIS ACTUALLY MEANT…) “Why don’t we go over to the county shelter and look at the dogs?”

He looked at me, and had that look in his eye. That look that Charlie Brown must have gotten in HIS eye every time Lucy asked him to kick the football before she yanked it away from him. That look that said he REALLY wanted something but wasn’t sure he was actually going to get it.

“Are you sure?” he said.

“I’m sure.” I said — totally lying. I WAS NOT EVEN CLOSE TO SURE!! I KNEW what it meant. I KNEW that if we went there, we would get a dog. I was not sure. But I wanted a dog, and if we could find the right dog…

Well we went. So many dogs! When we got to her kennel, I knew she was something special. First off, she was standing right up against the door, and made nary a peep. The din of noise from all the other dogs was too much for my 12 year old son — he has always been noise sensitive — he left to go hang out with the kitties. We made a note of the kennel and then arranged to meet her outside. After that meeting, we agreed she was the one for us. We went up front and adopted her — but couldn’t bring her home until after she had been spayed, later on in the week.

We spent the days discussing what to name her, and preparing for her arrival. While James really would have liked a Star Wars name (Sabine and Ahsoka were the top favorites in that arena) we settled on Katara — who is the water bending friend to Aang in the children’s cartoon “Avatar – The Last Airbender” (NOT the movie Avatar with blue people, and NOT the live action movie version of the cartoon, called “The Last Airbender”, which was horrible, sorry, Shamalamadingdong. The cartoon is awesome, and the perfect show to watch as a family — good for kids, and still great for adults as well. It’s funny and charming and has a great world and storyline, go put it on your Netflix queue!) We have a history of naming our pets after Sci-Fi/Fantasy characters, and we weren’t about to break the trend now (Ender and Valentine are from Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, a book I highly recommend you go and read right now (it’s way better than the movie)).

(Wow, I really went all out with parenthesis in that last paragraph.)

Katara came home, and she’s been with us for 3 weeks now. That first week was kind of amazing for me, the non-dog-person. I felt like there should be a movie montage of the two of us falling in love — her running in slow mo through the grass toward me carring her rope toy, me with open arms waiting to greet her. Katara eagerly looking back at me at the end of her leash, me smiling at her and talking softly. Katara flopped down on our living room floor while the family watches the latest episode of Top Gear. All with the perfect soundtrack. “Dream Weaver” maybe? I’ll have to think on it.

“I LOVE HER!” I declared with astonishment and passion to my mom on breaking the news of our newest arrival. She laughed, “Of course you do!”

It’s been 3 weeks now, and the first blush of new love and excitement is past now — I still love her, but am no longer SURPRISED by how overpowering my love for her is, LOL! What I don’t love however, is the absolutely stinkiest farts this dog has been ripping. Maybe it’s the bits of peanut butter or spray cheese I add to her Kongs that then turns into the most foul, fetid smell that has ever been introduced to this planet’s atmosphere, but whatever it is, I wish I knew so I could stop giving it to her.

I feel like I did when I had a newborn breastfed baby. A baby who is breastfed has the most non-smelly baby poos ever. They smell vaguely unpleasant, I mean, it’s not like it’s appetizing or anything, but a breastfed baby diaper has a very mild, almost sweet smelling odor to it, so that you start to believe your beautiful wonder child is the first in the world to actually process food through their digestive system without actually making anything that stinks. “Of course they would, they are the most WONDERFUL BABY IN THE UNIVERSE, why wouldn’t they sweet smelling poop??” you think to yourself.

But when you feed the that same sweet baby some cereal or baby food for the first time and suddenly those diapers are filled with actual adult smelling shit, it’s a bit of a shock to one’s system. “I thought my baby’s poop just naturally didn’t stink!” one would think. Of course, one would be very very wrong.

It’s this same shock and surprise I’m experiencing now when I’m talking to my husband and an audible toot sounds, and I look at him. “Was that you?” I ask. Always full of surprises, this marriage. “No,” he answers. We both crack up as we look at Katara’s sweet doggy face. “IT WAS THE DOG?!!” we chortle — laughing until the smell hits us, and then we run for the gas masks.

So that’s the news from the Panders household — Our new sweet puppy, 6 month old Katara is a happy addition to our family, smelly farts and all.

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I feel like a new mom!

-Amy