Dash(er) Connelly!

Wow, it's easy to lose track of time with everything we have going on these days.  Now to pick up where I left off.  After getting back from the honeymoon, Kristin and I went about slowly getting rid of or repainting or moving around all my old stuff in order to make the house our own.  In the middle of all that, we decided that Sully needed a little brother.  After doing some research and contacting Recia from Recia's Prize Labradoodles, we were sent pictures of several adorable puppies.  We just happened to fall in love with one of them in particular:

I had no idea what I was in for.  Kristin had done a great job with Sully already in just the few months she had him before we started dating so alot of the puppy behavior was already dealt with.  But, with her reassuring me all the way, we headed out on October 18th, 2011 to pick up the newest member of the family, Dash Connelly (we decided it was short for Dasher haha).  This is a picture of Dash on the car ride home with us that first day.  He was cuddly though obviously a little scared too.

You can see why we knew this guy was the one for us.  He was so cute back then with his little white markings and strikingly green eyes.  I've never seen those on a dog before!  We got him home and the first thing we set about doing was letting Sully and Dash get to know each other.  Dash was extremely excited to meet Sully and, at least in his mind, they instantly became fast friends.  Sully took a little longer to warm up to that idea.  There was a lot of ignoring and little snips at the little guy before he just gave in and started to play along.  I was off work for a couple days and getting ready to start working nights again so it was my job to watch the little guy and hopefully distract him enough so my lovely wife could get some rest.  It was alot of fun, with a few moments of frustration mixed in.  Like I said earlier, I had no idea what I was in for.  If he wasn't peeing on the floor or whining, he was finding the nearest electrical cord to try to pull on.  It was interesting to say the least.

It wasn't too much longer before our two boys started getting along and playing, though.  We kept Dash in his crate at night, which caused a fair bit of whining for a few weeks, and Sully stayed in his bed nearby (until he jumped on the bed late at night knowing we wouldn't notice :) ).  Here are some of the early photos we got of the two of them:

Sully didn't like that all of the toys ended up in Dash's little den, but he never got too upset when Dash stole them from him.

Both boys absolutely loved the chance to sleep on either the couch or our bad as long as they could near Kristin or I.  At this point, Dash was still a long way from the jumper he is now.

I think Sully may have bet him he couldn't get under the couch.  Dash won, but some crying soon told me that it wasn't quite as easy to get out as it was to get under there.

Kristin and I decided it would be fun to see how they liked the coats that my parents' dogs wore while we were visiting around Christmas.

Here are our boys a few month later after their first haircuts together.  Sully got the actual cut we wanted, though they left the ears a little longer than we would have liked.  Dash, however, apparently needed to be warmed up to the idea so they only gave him a "puppy cut,"  which seems to mean trim the paws up and a little bit of the face and don't touch another hair on his body.  He looked a little ridiculous haha.

Since then, our boys have continued to teach us what it means to be responsible and how it's possible to care for someone so much even when they make life a little difficult.  We've gone through our fair share of Resolve and a few destroyed slippers (mostly Dash), but we wouldn't trade any of that for the joy they also bring.  Hopefully this has started to prepare us for another future member of our family, but that's something for an entirely different post!