Dogiversary

It's hard to believe, but it's been a year since Dakota, AKA the doogles, has come into our lives. It was a very big day when Dakota came to live with us. After a thorough adoption application and interview process, B and I were very excited to welcome D. Jones (another nickname, and p.s. neither of our last names are Jones) into our home. Noreen, Dakota's "foster mother" from the Bill Foundation, brought him over to our house and spent a couple hours with us while we all got to know each other better. Then, she took our picture. Our very first family portrait.

This past year has been so wonderful and now I can't imagine our house without the pitter patter sound of little puppy feet against our wood floors. (We call him puppy, even though the educated guess is that he's at least 4 years old.) We don't know much about Dakota's past life before he was rescued, but we have a feeling he was abused. :( Though he has fully bonded with us and is very comfortable around people he knows, he remains skittish and unsure in new settings. The upside is, he has retained all the wonderful training he picked up while under the care of Noreen and the Bill Foundation, and we haven't let him down in that regard (we take our "parenting" very seriously)!

Our trip to Sedona last week marked our first family vacation. B and I hadn't been on a vacation, short or long, in a while. He had the month of April off while he was between movie projects, so I decided to take off a week so we could go and do something fun. We decided to bring along the doogles, and I'm so glad we did! Though we weren't able to do as much hiking with him as I had hoped, we did a little, and anyway the trip wouldn't have been the same at all if he weren't with us. I think he had fun, too! Among other things, he was introduced to "vacation eating." We are such suckers. Yes, he is a bit of a spoiled pooch, but hey, what do you want from us? Could you resist this face?

Happy Dogiversary, doogles!