Coming home

Baby's crib

July 9th, 2003, we planned to bring home our BMD puppy. We had already settled on the name Riley. The way we arranged to pick up our puppy from the BB is now embarrasing for me to publically post, but I feel it is important to remember our mistakes and share them. If only we knew then what we know now.
The BB explained that they were flying in from Germany on a flight that arrived at Logan airport around 9pm. They asked us if we wanted to wait until they got the puppies home, cleaned and settled, and then we could come up the next day to pick him up. Too anxious to wait, we reasoned that perhaps we should come get him home as soon as possible to avoid any additional transitions and adjustments. They agreed and we arranged to drive to a Honey Dew Donuts parking lot by Logan's freight arrival area to wait for them. How shady is that?!! We agreed to pick up our puppy in a parking lot of a donut shop in the middle of the night!

When they arrived, three puppies were crated in the back of their vehicle. It was dark and not easy to see them all. They warned that they did not want to bring the puppies out in the open for too long, as it was windy and they said it is not good for the puppies to be out in the wind for too long. Then they placed a bundle of Berner fluff into my outreached arms. He must have been so scared the poor thing. He squirmed and wriggled in my arms. I tried to turn him around so that I could see his face and confirm the white blaze and sweet face. It did not seem right. He continued to squirm and cry and I tried to put him back into the crate.

I asked, "This is Biene Male A right?" as our original photo was labeled.
Riley's mother's name was Biene. The other male puppy had a different mother, Elke.
(Duh, How many responsible breeders out there ever whelp two litters at the same time?)
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a print out of our puppy's picture. The BBs looked at it and said, "Aye, Biene Male is yours. That is not your puppy."

I was pleased. The first puppy did not seem right in my arms.

When they picked up the next puppy, I looked directly into his face. Yes. This is him. I took him into my arms where he settled calmly. This is our baby. He knows it.

I took Riley into the car, out of the wind, so that he would feel safe. Jeffrey settled up the paperwork, packed up the puppy food, and paid them. The BBs came over to the car window to give us some last minute suggestions on how to get our puppy settled.

"Don't let him sleep anywhere there is a draft."
"He will miss his littermates the first few nights but he should forget about them very soon."
"Here is his Vaccination record your vet will want to see. All of our puppies are vet cleared before they can leave Germany."
"Here is his microchip number and his pedigree."
"You can call and talk to me anytime if you have any questions. He will be alright."

It all seemed legal and official. We drove home, beaming over our new bundle of fur, quickly forgeting how strange and sort of "not right" that experience was.

That first night, we let Riley explore the house which seemed so enormous to a little puppy who barely took more than 2-3 steps at a time. We had set up a small, portable crate in the corner of our bedroom for him. The main crate we purchased for him stayed in the living room, too large to break down and carry up and down the stairs everyday. At the size of it, you'd think we were expecting a 200 pound bear cub to come live with us.

As we acquainted Riley to our bedroom, he whined just a few minutes and settled down. He must have been terrified and exhausted from his ordeal cuz he almost slept until morning that first night. For the next 4 months, we struggled to teach him to sleep through the night. This meant potty breaks every 2-3 hours around the clock with frequent flooding accidents inside the crate.

The picture posted here is cute and so typical of a new parent: we prepared a fleece-lined crate filled with soft plush toys. That lasted about 2 days. When he continuously soaked everything and I had to keep washing the liner and the toys, we went down to just one toy for easy clean up. We learned quickly how dependent he was upon us. He was just a little baby. And our baby was home.