A Puppy Update

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about Hadley, no?

I know, I know. Annoying. You don’t care. But, um, she’s adorable. And still relatively new, so I’m still obsessed. So let’s chat about her.

For those of you who are new around these parts, we randomly adopted our third dog, Hadley, back in September. She was underweight, sickly, and had had almost no human contact for the first three months of her life. But she was an incredibly sweet Doberman puppy (which just so happens to be my dream dog), so I had to make her mine. And so we did.

It’s been four months now since we became a three-dog household and I’ve gotta say, it’s not as bad as I expected it to be! I always swore up and down I didn’t want three dogs because it seemed too chaotic (especially since Corey and I are drawn to the, um, larger breeds) and I just didn’t think I could handle that much dog energy in our house. But we’re finding that having three dogs isn’t really all that different from having two, just a little louder and with a lot more cuddles. And hopefully, as Hadley continues to get older (and yes, bigger), she’ll lose some of the puppy craziness and turn into a slightly more relaxed and slightly less manic dog.

When we adopted her, she was about 16 pounds, which was dramatically lower than the average weight for a Doberman her age (which is closer to 30 pounds). Now? She’s still a bit under the ideal weight for her age, weighing in at 55 pounds, but she’s growing like a weed and has actually already reached the ideal height for a full grown Doberman female, which is about 25 inches tall. So basically, she’s abnormally tall but super skinny – she reminds me of a cartoon character that got flattened and is now 2-d instead of 3-d. Part of that, of course, is just the breed (Doberman are very lanky dogs!) and part of that is also the fact that she’s a puppy and is growing too fast for her body to keep up – she’ll fill out over time. But for now? The gangly, awkward teenager look is pretty damn cute.

She’s probably our most cuddly dog, and also the one who has the least awareness of how large her body is. She thinks she is a tiny little lap dog, and must be touching someone at all times (which is particularly awkward when you’re trying to walk down the stairs and she insists on leaning against you). She’s been known to lay across my feet when I’m washing dishes or to lay down directly in front of the shower in the mornings while Corey is taking a shower.

She loves to go places and is the only dog of our three that we feel comfortable taking for public outings. The other two go a little crazy when we take them out of the house (probably because we didn’t do it enough when they were younger), but many of the people at Lowe’s recognize us when we come in with her, and she’s frequently seen dramatically flopping down on the floor of the store if Corey and I stand in one spot for more than 10 seconds (yes, she takes naps in the middle of Lowe’s).

And that’s where we’re at with our sweet baby girl! She gets bigger every day and I know I’m going to miss this puppy stage when she’s done with it. Corey and I were so unsure about getting another dog at first, but we tell each other on a regular basis how happy we are to have her – she fits into our little family like she was meant for us.