My close friend Sean and I left early from our respective Puget Sound homes. Having packed the expected requirements for a tiny little puppy: blankets, bowls, water, food and toys, we were on our way. Five hours later, arriving at his breeder's house in Spokane (http://www.majerakitas.com/).
The day I picked him up was cold and snowy, A.K.A. "any Winter day ending in 'day' in east Washington". Sean and I chatted with the breeders's, Maddy and Jeremy, and some of the Daed's sibling's other parents. Maddy had prepared a plethora of information and swag that would help prepare me for transition of the boy into my life. She forgot to mention that he'd be taking over my heart.
The Daed package consisted of a folder with all of his lineage information, checkup and immunization reports, to-do lists, toys, more bowls, food and a box to hold it all (in which his toys still reside, when they're not being played with or used as pillows).
Sadly, Sean and I needed to head west and were not able to join the rest of the crew in their new-puppy celebrations. We set the puppy-breath generator into the flattened cargo area of Sean's fiance's SUV where he (Daed) promptly fell back to sleep. Apparently he had been playing with his siblings for the better part of the morning. Being Akita's, quite intelligent and empathic, the brood most likely felt the mixed-energy in the air that Maddy and Jeremy were putting out. Happy to see their pups go to new, loving homes, but sad to see their puppies go. All of that pooped the boy out. He slept the entire way back. I actually had to wake him up to "use the facilities" and take in some water and food at a rest stop about half way back. He was asleep as I lifted him off the ground to put him back into the SUV.
Once we arrived back at Sean and Kerry's house, where I had left my car, I put the bulk of Daed's stuff into my car and took him inside to meet Jericho and Kerry. Jericho was, a the time, a 100lb+ Akita and quite tall. Here's Daed at 22lbs and maybe 18" in length. Jericho came over to say hi to his dad and wiggle at me when he saw the extra fur we brought inside with us. He quite literally scared the pee out of Daed with the loud "this is my house" bark. Daed tried to escape to anywhere he could, ending up back in my arms, which has always been my preferred spot for him. After some time, Jericho was able to tolerate the presence of Daed, and right around that time Daed felt it necessary to pounce on him. Thankfully for him it was time to go home.
Finally, after quite a long day for Sean, myself and this 2 month old love-ball, Daed and I arrived at his new home. He felt it necessary to mark it in a couple of ways, once I cleaned that up, I picked the little guy up and loved him for a little bit and tried to keep him from chewing on things he shouldn't be.
Once we got the playing out of the way, he needed some more water and a little food and then it was off to bed, an ordeal into itself. This is the first time, in his life, that Daed was going to spend the night with just one other animal in the room. He usually had 7 other siblings and possibly even his mom and dad to keep him company as well as provide warmth and safety.
At this point, he was given a nice, comfy bed, a blanket for this bed and a toy to chew on in case he was bored. What happened after that is best described by a quick psuedo-code definition:
1. Crawl into bed
2. Pull blankets up
3. Push blankets off
4. Console Daed
5. Set Daed back into bed
6. Repeat steps 1-5 3 or 4 times
7. Pull blankets and pillow down onto floor
8. Snuggle up with Fluffy
Okay, so the next morning, I woke up after having 'slept' next to Daed the entire night with a wrenched neck and back and, much more importantly, a safe, sound, snug, snoring puppy.
I woke him up by kissing his head and scratching his neck. Sidenote: he wasn't quite sure about either of those, however, after repeating those actions many times, they became a requirement of his.
He decided to pee in the bedroom, right in front of the nice, non-absorbant tile on the nice, ultra-absorbant carpet. "NO!" was exclaimed and he was ushered into the bathroom. Of course, all that did was result in sad-puppy eyes and a dumbell shadow of urine crossing the carpet-tile transition.
We spent the next few minutes discovering stairs. Here he was in a whole new world, just a short while after having been introduced to the world in the first place, and I'm trying to convince him to do the unthinkable. Seriously, imagine that you're about 10" tall, spent practically all of your life at one altitude with the exception of being occasionally shuttled by giant, two-legged things, and now one of them is trying to convince you that if you walk forward, off the edge of the world no-less, that you will not get hurt.
It takes a leap of faith, pardon the pun, to make that step, pardon that pun, also. With some sweet-talking and cookie-cohersion, he jumped. And landed, albeit with a slight stumble. Then he looked down and noticed that he could do it again. Being curious, he jumped again, and again.
All in all, he enjoyed his new found explorer status, so much so that he had to work his way back up the stairs to come down again. That worked up an appetite and a thirst! Good thing there's more carpet down here to pee on!!
