I haven’t been posting much for a few weeks, but I will get back to my interpretation of Andrew’s hobbies soon. This week I wanted to let you all know we welcomed a second pup into our lives and hearts! We adopted Jake from Underdog Rescue the weekend before Easter. We saw him on their social media and fell in love. Jake is about 19 pounds and is a miniature schnauzer. He appears to be a purebred since he was a breeder surrender at 7 years old. He might not have been abused but he was definitely neglected in his life. We are beyond grateful for Underdog Rescue for taking him in and to LuAnn, his foster mom, who was the first home to show him unconditional love. With LuAnn’s help, Jake started realizing that people are good and loving— he played with her pup, got fed good food three times a day, and had the love and attention he wanted. Jake took a couple steps backward in development with the change of coming into our home, but he is making more progress in just a couple weeks than I could have imagined! He is bonding with both of us, although Jake definitely takes to Andrew a bit more—not that I blame Jake, since he and Andrew spend all day together at home. Jake is learning how to tell us he needs to go outside to relieve himself, and we are learning what his cues are. Jake loves Goldy, but wishes Goldy would play in a different way—Goldy doesn’t play like most dogs though.

Jake is slowly showing us more of his personality too! He likes to curl up to sleep, but in the morning he wants to play. Yesterday we tried playing with a frisbee and a tennis ball—turns out Jake loves the tennis ball! He will chase it all around the backyard. Jake has a lot of things that trigger worry or a scared response, but they are slowly becoming less of a problem. He used to be absolutely terrified of the leash but yesterday we walked to the corner of our block and back home! He is learning a lot from Goldy and from us. In turn, we are learning a ton from Jake! Jake likes being carried and can’t quite figure out how to do these stair things yet, but he is curious about them. Over Easter, Jake even did pretty well with the littles in the family, choosing to escape to his crate rather than be aggressive when he needed alone time. Jake is so full of love and all he wants is love and attention in return—something we have plenty of! I think Jake will also be a great big brother to our future child—he is watchful and protective and wants to just be near his people.

~Natalie