In Training

So the real reason I haven’t posted anything in a while is this: all of my fantastical ideas about wanting a dog turned out to be completely different than actually having a dog. The idea of Rocket captivated my thoughts—the vision of him in my life somehow made my dreams feel closer to coming true. I wasn’t ready for all the complex emotions and massive amounts of patience it would require to keep, care for, and train a sick puppy. “I don’t know this dog,” kept running through my head, and yet he was supposed to be ‘the one’ for me. And I apparently didn’t know myself, either. In the following blog posts, I’m going to be candid about the fact that I was not a perfect dog rescuer/owner. I was a blundering, impressionable idiot at times—I still have my moments. A true member of the “I may be a grown up, but grown ups have no idea what they are doing” club. (I believe it is healthy to admit this). I was not proud of all of my choices. I was not always happy about having the burden of an animal. But, [whew] the lessons I did learn were big, and on some level I deeply loved Rocket. Still do. I was smitten with the hairless wonder of a dog that still lives with me today. Hopefully you can tell from the pictures that will accompany the posts that, while there were an abundance of rough patches, it wasn’t always unpleasant. Most importantly, we were learning. We’re still ‘in training,’ if only because we’re living life.