{"id":1688,"date":"2009-01-25T19:01:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-26T02:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lalato.com\/blog\/2009\/01\/25\/green-tara-aka-the-puppy-post-2\/"},"modified":"2011-05-09T01:25:20","modified_gmt":"2011-05-09T07:25:20","slug":"green-tara-aka-the-puppy-post-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lalato.com\/blog\/2009\/01\/green-tara-aka-the-puppy-post-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Green Tara… aka the Puppy post!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally published at Kickin’ the new Kuh-nowledge<\/a>. You can comment here or there<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s been quite some time since the old man in our house, Mr. Bentley, passed away<\/a>.\u00a0 I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I missed him as much as I did (even though he was really a momma’s boy).<\/p>\n

Liz was ready for a new dog a lot sooner than I was.\u00a0 She was looking at rescue groups and searching for breeds long before I was ready to even think about it.\u00a0 Something inside her just knew that our lives needed another furball running around the house.<\/p>\n

Me, on the other hand…\u00a0 I was perpetually on the fence.\u00a0 Liz would show me some breed and I would always find something wrong with it.\u00a0 Or I would say something vague and unhelpful like…\u00a0 “too small” or “too big” or I would point to dogs I knew Liz didn’t like and say things like…\u00a0 “Oh this breed is really awesome, let’s get that one.”<\/p>\n

In general, I simply wasn’t prepared for a dog.\u00a0 I was stressed out at work, and the economic downturn made me wonder if I would be working at all.\u00a0 The winter had forced me back to driving, not to mention the cold itself which sucks no matter how you slice it.\u00a0 Finally, the reality of living two lives (one in Chicago and one in Champaign) was dragging into its third year.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, as I was stewing in my juices…\u00a0 Liz was learning about breeds.\u00a0 She studied Keeshonds, Irish Wolf Hounds, Akitas, Brussels Griffon and a few others.\u00a0 We even went to a couple of dog shows.\u00a0\u00a0 One breed stood out above all the others throughout this process:\u00a0 Bernese Mountain Dog.<\/p>\n

The funny thing about the Bernese Mountain dog…\u00a0 was that Liz had found a breed I couldn’t find something wrong with.\u00a0 Sure… they’re big, but they’re not too big.\u00a0 They have incredibly gentle temperaments.\u00a0 Sure they shed a lot, but so do pugs (though not as much due to the size difference of course).\u00a0 So, I was basically stuck with saying stuff like…\u00a0 maybe next summer or after we leave Champaign-Urbana.\u00a0 Maybe, maybe, maybe.\u00a0 Or I would point to the economic downturn and say something like… dogs cost money.<\/p>\n

By this point Liz had joined us in a Bernese Mountain Dog rescue group…\u00a0 and we had an opportunity to foster Carly, a wonderfully sweet 7 year old that was eventually adopted by a family in New Jersey.\u00a0 I think that experience really cemented it for Liz, and I could feel the ice in my personal stress pond starting to melt a little.<\/p>\n

Liz then started contacting breeders.\u00a0 It wasn’t that we would have been less happy adopting a full grown dog, but Liz wanted the puppy experience.\u00a0 It’s possible that some kind of biological clock was ticking, but I think part of it too is that Liz wants a dog she can train for therapy work… and that’s much harder to find in a rescue dog.<\/p>\n

Anyway, she talked to a few breeders, and finally settled on one in Salt Lake City.\u00a0 Coincidence or convergence…\u00a0 either way, we had a chance to see the breeder, Mary-Ann Bowman, when we visited SLC last fall.\u00a0 You can check out her blog at… http:\/\/www.kaibabbmd.blogspot.com\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I think that by now you know what this is building up to.\u00a0 Mary-Ann’s beautiful Berner, Cadi, had a litter soon after we visited SLC.\u00a0 There were 8 puppies…\u00a0 4 boys and 4 girls.\u00a0 As the puppies were growing, Mary-Ann posted pictures and stories, and Liz would show me the photos every day. Over the course of eight weeks, I started getting a bit more excited about the idea of getting a puppy.\u00a0 At some point I started checking the blog on my own without Liz’s prompting.\u00a0 I mean… once you start seeing the pictures, how can you resist?<\/p>\n

One interesting tidbit about this particular litter of puppies…\u00a0 Even though Liz had expressed an interest with the breeder, we weren’t entirely sure that we were going to get one of the puppies.\u00a0 You see, there were several people interested in this litter.\u00a0 I’m glad we made a connection with Mary-Ann on our visit to SLC.\u00a0 I’m fairly certain that’s what put us over the top in Mary-Ann’s eyes.<\/p>\n

OK…\u00a0 I think you’ve suffered through enough of my crappy writing.\u00a0 Without further ado, I am proud and happy to introduce to you all…\u00a0 Kaibab’s Green Tara, aka Tara, our new puppy.\u00a0 She is named after Green Tara, the buddhist goddess of compassion<\/a>.\u00a0 So…\u00a0 after all my griping, guess who named the dog.\u00a0 That’s right.. me.\u00a0 Liz was right.\u00a0 It was time for a new puppy.<\/p>\n

And now… what you’ve all been waiting for…\u00a0 PUPPY PICTURES!!!!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Tara<\/p>\n

Tara hanging out on the couch<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Puppy<\/p>\n

Puppy Head!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Tara<\/p>\n

Tara Being Attacked By the Bear Chair<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Tara<\/p>\n

Tara on Bear Chair With Toys<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Tara<\/p>\n

Tara says, "I'm cuter than you!"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Chewing<\/p>\n

Chewing on the Nylabone aka Teething Sucks<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally published at Kickin’ the new Kuh-nowledge. You can comment here or there. It’s been quite some time since the old man in our house, Mr. Bentley, passed away.\u00a0 I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I missed him as much as I did (even though he was really a momma’s boy). Liz was ready…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[136,137],"class_list":["post-1688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pets","tag-dogs","tag-tara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lalato.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lalato.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lalato.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lalato.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lalato.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1688"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lalato.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1706,"href":"https:\/\/www.lalato.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1688\/revisions\/1706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lalato.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lalato.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lalato.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}