Life Goes On

Quite a few things have gone on in a week and a half since my dog passed away. In fact, I really wanted to be at this point in time right after he died since the pain isn't so shocking and you're learning to deal with missing them. It's a lot easier state of mind to be in as life goes on.

First of all, a week after Mel died I went on a camping trip with the Young Single Adults in my ward where we went up to our stake property for an overnighter. I was in charge of the food feeding 7 boys and 3 girls. I was a little panicked about having enough because I've never had to plan so many meals for so many boys! Thankfully, they were all well fed and we ended up having a BBQ at my house afterwards to eat up some leftovers. The trip was fun though and I've really been wanting to go up into the mountains so that helped relieve my hiking/camping itch. In fact, on our hike on Saturday morning we were trying to find a trail head up the hill from our camp (which we never found) and saw a deer running into a thicket! It was cool. The whole hike was really neat even though it was an idiot's idiot trail, as I'd call it. Idiot's trails are what I call deer trails people start to take off the real trail because they think it'll be fun. We were making our own hence it being an idiot's idiot trail. I loved taking pictures up there too. The leaves weren't quite out yet giving the mountains a super early spring look I never get to see. So gorgeous.

Tuesday morning on June 1 my mom surprised me though. My parents found a Boston Terrier online available for adoption at a nearby shelter over the weekend, but Monday they were closed for Memorial Day, so Tuesday  morning I found myself on my way to adopt a new dog. He was found as a stray and the shelter thought he was about 5 years old (we think he's much older than that, he's just really spry for his age) and he had no name, but they called him Malone to post on the website. We didn't like Malone for a name, it made me think of basketball, my all time hated sport. So we changed his name to Charlie after Charles Bingley in Pride and Prejudice. I keep calling him Mel though, so I keep reminding myself "This isn't Mel, this is Charlie." They look so much alike though! Charlie is basically Mel stretched out in the legs, neck, and nose. Of course, all Bostons look fairly similar because of how they're bred for their markings, but it's still a little uncanny sometimes. The first day we got him I was sad again for a bit because of how much he reminded me of Mel, but overall he's helped me feel a lot better.

Charlie is such a sweetie too. He likes to cuddle and he's a lot more energetic than Mel was. He doesn't quite know how to fetch, but he thinks all toys are absolutely his. I'm going to have to teach him how to really play fetch using treats. He's obsessed with food. Mel's purpose in life was playing with his toy and fetching it. Charlie's purpose in life is to get people-food and look as adorable as possible while begging. Thus if you walk in the kitchen and make something rustle, or if he hears a bag, box, plate and fork, you name it, he'll come running to you and sit and stare at you with his big brown eyes hoping you'll feed him. Dad is normally really bad about feeding the dogs food, but none of them are as bad as Charlie so even he's agreed to not snitch food to the dogs so we can break Charlie of his begging habit. I'm hoping he'll give up begging if he never gets fed. He was really funny when we tried teaching him to use the doggy door, he was absolutely afraid of it unless you lifted the flap and showed him a treat. Then he'd bolt through the flap like lightning!

He also has a bent ear that looks like it was a birth defect and we all think it gives him a lot of character and makes him more adorable. He's also really quirky and sometimes favors one eye over the other (which he does to both, so we don't think he has vision problems), but he'll turn his head to look at  you and then if he starts to walk or run that way he runs crooked or in a circle. It's really funny to watch.  He's so weird. Everyone adores him though. Even Becki, who didn't like Mel at first is completely enamored with Charlie and wants him to snuggle her whenever she's around. My only fear is that he'll become attached to someone else instead of me, so I've been making sure to put in an effort to make sure he likes me just by spending time with him. But he's definitely fit right into the family, and we're all glad to have found another Boston so quickly to help fill up the hole that Mel left behind. Let's hope Charlie's around longer than 2 years this time. :0)