"OW!, NO!, DON'T DO THAT!, STOP!!"

All classic words we hear when you bring that sweet little four legged bundle home. Before we really get into all that let start off with some back ground info. There is alot of information you don't necessarily need to know, but hey can't hurt right? Sammy and I have been together for a little over a year and a half now and have lived together for almost a year. I just finished 5 years in the military and now am a aspiring poor college student. Sammy is a grad student studying epedimiology (spell check please). We both grew up with dogs all our life and are much happier admiting to being dog people than cat people "thumbs down". Since we lived together the topic of getting our own dog always came up. Unfortunately, our old apartment wouldn't allow pets so we were up the creek without a paddle. We eventually moved into a much better place where we were allowed to have pets. I'm not going to lie, the second we moved in I couldn't wait to get a puppy. I mean I spent the majority of my spare time scouring the internet for a puppy. We really wanted a lab, so thats all I searched for. There were all kinds of puppies to choose from, but how would I choose the right one? How do you choose? Truthfully all I was doing was looking. I mean I didn't really expect to get one so soon. We moved into the apartment in July and really weren't planning on getting a puppy until September time frame. Yeah I knew that wasn't going to happen. Soooooo.... on July 16 after searching the internet I found her! It was the cutest little female black lab puppy. She belonged to a family that just didn't have time for her anymore. So we hopped in the car that Saturday morning and drove 2 hours east to pick her up. When we finally arrived (which seemed liked for-ev-er) we pully up to this house and see the cutest little puppy sitting in the front yard. As soon as we got out of the car we could just see her little butt and tail wagging all over the place. She ran straight to Sammy and I knew that this was the one for us. After a little akward convo with the previous owner we set off for the ride home (which again seemed like for-ev-er).

Now that we've covered the boring stuff lets really get down to business. We have a little over a month to catch up on so pay attention! We named her Ginny (pronounced Gin-Knee) after the Harry Potter character, Ginny Weasley. Yes, I'll admit it we both like Harry Potter, though i'm not as much of a fanatic as Sammy is. If you and the sisters are reading this you know what I'm talking about and sometimes it was a little scary, but in a good way scary not the bad way. Ginny was born on May 17th so she was about 8 weeks old when we got her. Which really wasn't a good thing even though she was so cute. From all the research i've done puppies aren't supposed to be pulled from the litter until the are 8 weeks because it allows them to acquire basic behavioral instincts. That was one of the first problem we came across with Ginny. Even though she's just a puppy, she can bite very hard when she's excited and her teeth are very very sharp. I mean its hard to believe that something so small could bring fear to somebody so big, but believe it! The scars on my hands can prove it. Throughout the first few weeks we came across the usual new puppy problems. Uncontrollable bladder, constant biting, chewing on anything, whining at all hours of the night, and being absolutely terrible on a leash. Even with all that, the good outweighs the bad. I mean she really is a good dog. She's very loving and playful. She loves meeting new people and new dogs. Its hard to explain to people how she can be such a little devil at home because she is so good when there is company or we take her anywhere. Ginny caught on to the whole potty training thing very quickly. We still have an accident here or there but nothing to serious. About 98% of the time she goes to the door when she has to go out and if you don't pay attention to her she will definitely let you know. Sometimes I wonder how a dog so small can produce such a loud and powerful bark. I mean if Ginny was a superhero, her bark would her super power.

**Quick break to deal with wild thing going crazy**

Anyways... Ginny also is a very loving lap dog. She loves to cuddle whenever she's tired. One of my favorite things she used to do was when we first got her we let her sleep in the bed at night and she loved to sleep up on the pillows next to our heads, especially over on Sammy's side. That had to come to an end though so that we could crate train her, which is starting to go very well now. Usually at night she knows its time to go to bed and she will walk right in her crate and go to sleep. Ginny is also starting to sleep throughout the night. She whines a little bit in the morning, but its not because she has to pee, she just wants to lay in the bed with us so we let her for now. Since we're on the topic of early morning and sleepless nights, I have to give props to Sammy because she was such a trooper getting up early every morning my last few weeks in the military because I had to go to work and I just didn't have the time to take Ginny for her early morning walks. This morning though was very different. Ginny slept in until almost 8:30 and occassionally I would wake up and worry that something was wrong because she was going nuts trying to wake us up.

We try to take Ginny to the dog park and puppy playtime at our local pet store whenever we can. She absolutely loves it. Our neighbor downstairs has a big brown lab named Fritz. The first time these two met was hilarious. Now when I say big, I mean huge. Fritz is a huge dog, but is so good with Ginny. The roll around together and play and do dog things so well even though the size difference is incredible. I mean Fritz loves to roll around and occassionally roll over Ginny but she's learned to get out of the way when that comes. We consider Fritz to be Ginny's boyfriend the way they get so excited whenever they see each other. Fritz is even really protective of Ginny when we are in the dog park. About a week ago we were in the dog park and Ginny was playing around with another puppy. The puppy bit Ginny and Ginny let out a yelp. As soon as that happened all I saw was a brown blur come sprinting across the dog park as Fritz ran over and pushed the other puppy off of Ginny and stood over her protecting her. No harm was done but it was really cute to see. Ginny also likes to play with all the other dogs and it is very amusing to say the least. She is still in that clumsy puppy phase so she is so funny when she runs and is always running into things because she is just all over the place. She loves to instegate things and then run away to her corner. Sooner or later all that clumsiness will end but hey we're in no hurry.

Ginny is a very intelligent dog. At 13 weeks she can already sit, shake, and lay down on command. It may not all happen on the right command, but more or less she does what is asked of her. She is starting to walk better on her leash but she just started this whole thing where she goes crazy while we try to put her leash on. I mean where did she learn this? Why does she do this? Come on now, give us a break! Ginny is really starting to like going on car rides now. I put her in the truck and whenever I can and she loves to stick her head out the window as we are cruising down the street together. When we first got her it took us almost an hour to get her to calm down on the ride home. Speaking of car rides... got a funny story for ya. Sammy and I had to drop some stuff off at our storage unit one day and we decided to take Ginny along for the ride to get her used to riding in the car. On the way there she was fine, just a little whining in the beginning. On the ride home was a different story. She refused to leave my lap and was very clinging the second we left to come home. On the ride home we got about three minutes away and Ginny turned around sat facing me. Next thing you know I'm looking at her and I can hear and see her starting to gag and I know whats coming. Before I knew it I was dodging the projectile vomit coming from Ginny's mouth. I mean it was nasty. It splattered all over my shoulder and I could feel it seeping through my shirt. Sammy isn't helping at all because she can barely drive because she is laughing so hard. I am losing it. If Sammy doesn't pull over now I'm going to puke all over her car. Luckily she pulls over and I can take my shirt off before I start to hurl myself. But, we get back in the car and head home and everything turns out alright. Sorry if you didn't think that was funny. It might of been one of those kind of things you just have to be there to really appreciate it.

On that note I think I'll end this one for now. Plenty of more stories to come and daily updates of the life of our wonderful black lab Ginny. This is my first blog and actually the first time I've ever done any of this. I like to brag and talk about Ginny to everyone so Sammy thought this would be a good idea. We'll see how well it works out. Stay tuned!

Don't judge my grammar or punctuation!