This made my day..

After lunch this afternoon, I received an e-mail reminder from PetSmart for a special someones upcoming birthday..

Rufus will be celebrating his 3rd big one next Wednesday..

Oh boy does time fly!!

Dog Park Days..

This week has been an exceptionally bad one so far. To change things up a little, we've been doing activities we normally wouldn't do on a weekday to help us get out of our funk and change our moods a little. Yesterday, we decided to blow off some steam by taking the little guy to his special haven, The Dog Park. (his most favorite words of all time)

Seeing this face makes it worth the trek every time.

Bugs never had a chance...

Rufus' 2 favorite things.

His Chair and Bugs Bunny.

Why we love Rufus

Reason #256:

He's not usually a stick chasing type of dog, but if he sees another dog enjoying the activity, he'll either get in there and ruin the fun or find an even bigger stick to chew and show off.

Sunday was just one of those days.

He's such a Diva.

365 days of Rufus

Starting Monday I will be posting daily pictures of my dog on our new blog baby, 365 days of Rufus .. He gets himself into a lot of trouble and I fear that my forgetful mind won't remember all the wonderful things we do with our pup on a daily basis.

This will be his Dog-ography if you will.

Will you be checking in?

You know it's Christmas when..

Your Dog eats part of the Christmas tree as his main meal and 3 feet of garland for dessert!! :S

Rufus is a star!!

Our lucky little guy was selected Dog of the week at the Ottawa Dog blog!!

We're convinced this shot won him the spot..

Ricko Sauve!

The story of a Duke, a Dom and their Rufus.

Before I met my better half, I was contemplating getting a pet. I wanted a companion so bad. But I wasn't sure how this would have really worked out at the time. I lived with 2 other girls and they didn't really care about anything else other than themselves. Looking back now, I'm very happy the puppy came much later.

After living with the better half for about a year and a bit, we finally looked in to getting a pet. We did personality assessments, researched many breeds and looked up many reviews and narrowed it down to 3.

1. Golden Doodle
2. Portuguese water dog
3. Wheaten Terrier

We decided to get a Wheaten terrier. We love the breed's personality traits and overall look. We didn't think this was going to be a high maintenance dog, but boy were we in for a surprise. There was the slight grooming factor we never really took seriously. But you know what? It isn't really an issue anymore. (save this for another post)

We called several local breeders and had not so good luck with them. The asking prices were well above what we could afford and there were also waiting lists for puppies that crept over a year of waiting. We didn't want to wait one year. We were dead set in getting a family pet by the fall. So the search went on until we found a website called "next day puppies"..

Ok, before I keep going with my little story, I know what you all are going to say… what the hell were you thinking?

Trust me when I say we did our homework. Buying locally would have cost us upwards to $1700 + vet bills.. And this would have guaranteed us a show dog and a certified pure breed stud (and to add insult to ingury.. a guaranteed crater sized hole in our budget). For one, we weren't ready to fork up that much money for a pet. And second of all, we didn't care about the show dog status.. All we wanted was a healthy pet we could spoil, love and call our own.

We narrowed it down to 3 breeders all located in the US that offered the breed for a more affordable price. We ended up interviewing all 3 breeders over the phone and asked for references before putting deposits down. I'm glad we did this, because 2 of the 3 did not rate very well overall. The people we called were all pleased with their dogs but something didn't seem right. The breeders were not registered and some of the vet documents were either missing or never provided (which apparently caused quite a raucous when it came time to vaccinate the pets).

The breeder we ended up picking, passed with flying colors. They gave us as many references as we wanted, most importantly from Canada which ended up being great for us! We were able to ask them questions about travel, paying duties on the dog when they crossed the border, what happens if the animal isn't in good health.. All the important stuff checked out. This put our minds at ease.. After a hilarious struggle with payment (which involved moving funds from 3 different accounts) we finally had a travel date set for our little guy.

Rufus in his crate at the airport

I remember being late picking him up from the airport in Syracuse, about a 3 hour drive from where we live. There was a little crate waiting behind the American airlines counter and we knew he was inside. The poor thing was covered in his little accidents and smelt reallllly bad, but we didn't care. He made it in 1 piece and in complete health. He was painfully shy the first time we took him out of his crate outside the airport. We held him like a little baby, and his little claws would come out and latch on to us every time a plane flew off the tarmac.. He kept trying to get back into his crate.. It was quite funny for me at the time, I had never really had a young pup like him before. Little did I know, the "fun stuff" was about to start.

More to come...

Why we {love} Rufus

Reason #103:

This Face.

Bed Head.. for pets?

While on a walk this past weekend, the better half and I spotted a brand new pet shop in the neighbourhood. We were pretty pumped about having one close by, since could finally stop in with Rufus for a quick treat during our afternoon walks.

We snooped around the store for a bit and saw the assortments of dog foods and toys they offered.. then something caught my eye.


I couldn't believe it..

It's bad enough I can't afford Bed Head hair products for myself... do you actually expect me to purchase a small bottle of de-tangler for $21.99 for a dog no less? Super insane.

Rufus and his mohawk

Now repeat after me..
I (I)
Will (Will)
Never let the better half near the dog with scissors ever again (...)

Here comes trouble

Rufus got a little restless today.. when he came in covered in dirt flicks after his romp around the backyard this morning, we kind figured something was going to happen..

which is why we really weren't surprised when we saw this...

But honestly, this isn't bad compared to what we used to come home from work to...

I'll save that post for a rainy day..

For now, I leave you with a very remorseful puppy..

Have a good weekend folks...

the dog blog

ok so a few months ago, I started a twitter account for the dog.. for some reason it kept getting followers. I changed the account to reflect my everyday life musings.. and everyone stopped following. idiot.

I then created a blog for the dog. Rufus the Wheaten.. no posts yet. it's still sitting there.. empty.. Rufus gets into a lot of trouble on a daily basis.. You'd think his owners would take the time to write a few of his stories down right? he at least deserves his own posts! so on that note, his daily shenanigans will be updated here from now on. You can follow his every move while reading mine!

*how clever!

enjoy...

{Rufus the Wheaten}

le chien

I wonder what he's dreaming about...