6 more days…

Until I get a little Zen in my life.

In the meantime, I’ve been busy. Besides two jobs, kids and other bits of busiesss… I’ve been cleaning up loose ends to get ready for being a dog owner. We have a new vet. Dr. Atton of Felton Veterinary hospital. Brian interviewed him on Monday and he seems perfect. Zen will go for her first check up with him the Thursday after she arrives.

We got pet insurance. I did quite a bit of research of companies but decided to go on the recommendation of our breeder. We went with PetFirst Healthcare. There is some interesting debate about whether or not pet insurance is driving the costs of pet health care up … in the same the way human insurance companies are. Many breeders are against it for this reason, and recommend instead.. that you put away the same amount of money you would use for premiums into a savings account. But I read some horror stories of puppy owners who were waiting for their pending insurance to go into affect and then discovered some big congenital health problem. I don’t expect that with Zen, but it did scare me enough to want to have some protection.

And we signed up for Puppy Classes. Our first session will start July 9th when she is 10.5 weeks old. We decided to go to Sirius in Los Gatos. It was more expensive than our friend’s school Living with Dogs in Santa Cruz.. but we chose it because they allow kids as young as three to attend, where the santa cruz school required that kids be as old as six. We’re excited about it and signed up for their complete puppy program. Six weeks starting at 10.5 weeks, with a two month break in between… and then we’ll start up again for another 6 weeks in October. Sirius mainly subscribes to the Ian Dunbar guide of off leash/lure reward system. (It is his school after all..) They give homework, charts to make sure you keep track with socialization, and a manual for easy reference.

Here’s a little Ian for ya.

Sit Zen, Sit. Good girl.