This time last year, we made one of the biggest decisions since getting married and buying our home. We got a puppy.
We were hoping to wait about a year the purchase of our house to welcome a dog into our lives, but some things don’t always go as planned.
You see, besides wanting extra space in our new home, we really wanted a house so that we could have a dog. Armando had never had a pet growing up and I had been used to the constant presence of a dog/pet since I was born. In fact, the day I was born, my parents Chow Chow gave birth to a litter of 8 puppies too. I was looking forward to filing that void and really having the house feel like a home.
We knew we wanted a Corgi for several reasons. Corgis are smart, compact, but also active. The first dog that I was responsible for was a Yorkshire Terrier from a family friend’s litter, and I felt I couldn’t handle too big of a breed, which was something Armando originally wanted. My terrier felt easy to care for growing up, but I reflected on how she was not socialized well with other dogs and I knew I wanted a social dog. My parents didn’t allow the dogs in the house when we were growing up, but I had envisioned having one that could come in and out of the house. The Corgi’s size felt like it would work not just in our house, but also in our Mini Cooper.
And so in December of 2018, we had talked to a breeder, that unbeknown to me, my sister had researched and got a hold of initially thinking of surprising Armando and me with a puppy. As sweet as the thought was, I am glad that didn’t pan out to some extent. I think it is important to meet your future dog and really understand the commitment you are making. The breeder was sweet and appeared to be responsible to us, so we resolved to check back in within a year since we decided to wait.
The second week of February hits last year, and I had been spending time looking at the Oakland Animal Shelter’s page as well as Craigslist to potentially find a rescue. I spot a rehoming ad on Craigslist for a sweet looking Corgi. A family of 3, with a toddler and not enough time/attention to give their four-legged companion. Suddenly, the ball was moving to potentially be new pet parents.
We reviewed the application, but the listing on Craigslist kept getting flagged/removed. It was later my understanding that the Corgi club in SF wants to be part of facilitating the rehoming of Corgis to protect the breed, but we received the application and were a little wary. There were questions about recording the yard and parts of the home that we felt seemed like a red flag considering we would be giving our address over someone we met on Craigslist. We went with our gut and let this go, but part of me had already envisioned our lives with a new pet.
We had lived in an apartment for 6 years together, I had been there 8, and we were not allowed to have pets. Part of me felt restless since there was no real barrier for us finally having one in our home. We contacted the breeder to put ourselves on a waitlist in case she had one since we recognized the popularity of the breed. We weren’t expecting what happened next.
We messaged her on a Tuesday, she lets us know she still has 2 female tri-color corgis available and 1 male. It hit me that this was from the same litter that was born in December when we felt we should wait a year. She sends us a few photos and the video of the 1 female that hasn’t been booked to be seen yet. She was playing tug-of-war with a sock, and my heart could not handle it. Over a few tears at our kitchen table that Tuesday evening, we decided we would be picking up our new addition to the family that coming Friday.
We drove with a lot of excitement to meet our girl, and it really was love at first sight. She weighed a little less than 10lbs and was 10 weeks old. What stood out to us was her different colored eyes, also known asheterochromia iridis, and we settled on the name Iris.
There is so much we’ve learned in the year we’ve had Iris, things we expected and things that surprised us which I’d love to share in a separate post, but one thing is for sure, she has definitely made our lives feel complete and makes our house a home. Bringing her into our home was the best decision we could have made when we did, even if we didn’t exactly feel ready, but now we are bettered prepared for our next addition.
I can’t believe it has already been a year with her. You can see more about Iris and her sassy personality on her Instagram account @blueiriscorgi.
Brandy
Photos by Nicole Saldana