Meet Sophie

For some time Daniel and I have been on the fence about getting a dog. For one reason or another we have continued to put off the whole dog thing.

Last Monday, Mike, the editor of the magazine I work on, sent out a company-wide email saying that he was looking for a home for one of his dogs and that he would even offer a week-long trial period. Now how often do you get to test drive a dog? We figured it was a golden opportunity for us and that if we discovered that we weren't dog people, we would kindly give her back.

Saturday morning, Mike came over with Sophie. She is a 45-ish pound Beagle mutt who is extremely friendly and very well behaved. Unless you are a stranger. Unfortunately for us, we were strangers. She did fine when Mike was there, and even after he left and we took her inside, she was good for about 30 minutes. But somewhere in there she started getting nervous and soon was growling and barking at Daniel. A dog that barks at his owner isn't much good, but we decided to give her some space and some time to adjust.

 

Daniel took off to do some work for a friend and I hung out doing Saturday chores and ignoring our new pup. Over the course of an afternoon of on again, off again thunderstorms, Sophie and I bonded. To be truthful, I think a round of thunder made her realize that letting me pet her was probably a better alternative to laying on the floor cowering to the rumbles in the sky.

Daniel came home and Sophie growled and barked but she soon she warmed up to him as well. I ran out to go grocery shopping and came back and things were much better, still some barking, but that is to be expected.

Sophie was not overtly curious about our house at first. She was actually scared of our basement, but she soon started exploring. She stays off of our furniture and out of our things and knows to go outside to do her business... what more could you ask for? 

Saturday we did a couple of tests to see how she would do without us home. First we went on a 10-minute walk to make sure she wouldn't destroy our house. As soon as we went out the door, this is what we saw...

She whined for a little while, but eventually calmed down. When we came back, she was laying calmly in front of the window. We decided to test her a little more and we left for an hour and went and grabbed dinner at Five Guys. Again, the whining, but she didn't bother anything in the house.

Sunday we went to church for 2-ish hours and she was fine by herself. It is so nice to not have to worry. In fact, we were kind of asking ourselves what was wrong with her because this all seems way too easy.

After lunch we put her in the car and took her for a walk at the greenway. We really want to socialize her a bit more to people. She really liked the car ride and didn't bark too badly on the greenway - I think she was just overly excited to be in a new place with lots of scents to follow. 

So far things are going great. She loves to play fetch in our back yard. She tends to be attention happy, but we are spending some time ignoring her so that she doesn't think that she needs to have our attention 100% of the time. Daniel managed to get her to go into the basement today and now she has no problem going up and down the stairs and in and out of the basement. She leaves us alone when we eat - no begging from this dog. One funny thing Daniel noticed today is that she is starting to move certain items of ours. He found a hat in the middle of the living room. Twice. She doesn't chew, she just takes it with her. She is a funny dog and has some quirks, but we really like her.

The best part (according to me) is that she is short haired and doesn't shed terribly, she doesn't drool (too much) and she is not a kissy dog.