A Giggle A Day...: Our Little Dalmadore!

Our little Sadie girl has been a part of our family for almost two months now! That puppy newness and excitement has passed a bit but we still pretty much adore her. As I thought in those early days she is proving to be a great fit for our family and she has settled into our home and family like she was always meant to be here!

We have learned a little bit more about her background...we learned that she is from Florida and that the rescue we adopted her from saved her when she and two siblings were abandoned on a dirt road with nothing but a bag of dog food and a blanket. Apparently this is a pretty common practice in that area and most dogs don't survive...and many of the ones that do are sent to kill shelters where they never make it. It's heart breaking to think that this could have happened to our Sadie girl. Lily says all of the time, "Mama, I can't believe anybody would just leave her on a dirt road." Thankfully, she made it through that and fought off a life threatening illness and now she is very far from that dirt road! Since we have had her she has doubled in size and the patches on her ears that they thought would never grow fur have filled in completely (you can see the bald ear patches on some of the first pictures below and see on some of the later ones how they are now filled in with fur)!

We still don't know exactly what kind of dog she is (we probably never will) but with a little help from some friends I think we have some of it figured out! We believe that she is mostly a "Dalmadore" which is a black lab and dalmatian mix! I never would have guessed dalmatian, but a friend of ours suggested it and sure enough when I googled "dalmadore" I found that the ones who are mostly black in color look JUST like our Sadie (with the exact same shape white patch that she has on her chest). And sure enough...in the last few weeks she had started to get black spots on her white chest (one is fully in and she has about 4 or 5 more forming)! So, we believe that she is black lab, dalmatian, and likely a few other things mixed in there. Our vet didn't know, but he also is guessing that she is a little bit of weimaraner! The funny thing is that Indy was a black lab weimaraner mix and she does have the same shiny, smooth black fur as him (most labs have fur that is a little more dull and coarse)!

What's also funny is that if you research the personality of the dalmadore it pretty much fits her perfectly! Sadie has never met a stranger (human or furry) and she seems to believe that EVERYONE should be her friend. She loves all people, other dogs, and even cats...she wants to play with them all! While I love this it does make it a bit difficult to have her off of her leash outside at this point...because she will follow anybody and everybody down the road, she has not figured out that cars are not her friend, and while she will generally stay around our yard she also loves to run across the street to visit with her favorite friend (our neighbor's dog Griffie)!

I think my favorite thing about her is that she is a total sweetheart, very affectionate, cuddly, and loves to give kisses. Sometimes she will go to lay on her own, but quite often she likes to snuggle right up to one of us. She doesn't exactly fit in my lap these days since the both of us are growing every day, but she still tries her best to snuggle right up to me in the recliner and in the morning when she is allowed to come in bed she curls right up to me and sometimes even rests her head on my belly (it's the sweetest thing...I think it's her bonding time with the baby)!

The other thing that we are loving about her is how playful she is. Of course this can be exhausting at times too, but we love that she loves to play...and we especially love how great and playful she is with the kids. I think it would be an understatement to say that they adore her. As we had hoped in getting a puppy Sadie is truly as much their dog as she is ours. They have so much fun playing with her and she is incredibly tolerant of them. Thankfully now that she is getting a little bigger they try to pick her up and carry her less!:) But even when they were trying to carry her around all of the time she took it like a champ and most of the time she really seems to enjoy playing with them. And the kids have actually been very helpful with her...playing with her when she needs to burn a little energy, feeding Sadie her meals, and Lily can even take her outside to use the bathroom all on her own! I think they really feel like Sadie is their dog and they can often be found loving on her.

Yep, I think that Sadie is a wonderful fit for our family, but don't be fooled into thinking that it's all sunshine and roses. She is still very much a puppy and there is still much training left to be done. She's not entirely housebroken yet, but I would say that most days she goes without an accident (a vast improvement from what seemed like 20 accidents in the house a day the first week or so...that was exhausting)! She's also mouthy...she loves to nibble on fingers and play by biting...she is a puppy after all...and she is slowly getting better about this. And she is a chewer...she'll chew just about anything...but wooden objects, shoes, and down comforters seem to be her favorite!:) She has chewed holes in 2 down comforters (ironically the day after I posted the picture of Indy chewing a down comforter), she has destroyed one pair of Joe's shoes and one pair of Lily's, and ruined one flying disc toy. Thankfully the other things she has chewed and destroyed have been pretty minor...many wooden blocks, pencils, clothes pins, plastic flowers from Lily's flower shop, etc... We keep a pretty good eye on her most of the time so while she runs off with everything under the sun she usually doesn't get very far! Which is amazing considering how much there is for her to find around the house!

And that's our Sadie baby. I call her my bundle of sweetness (or bundle for short) because that's exactly what she is. Yes, she has much to learn, but she is still just a puppy...and one of the sweetest puppies I have met. I am not a morning person at all, but even I can't resist her puppy kisses in the morning, and even when my back is hurting I can't help but let her curl right up next to me and snuggle. She is just a sweetheart and we adore her!