burbling

So. Wednesday evening, we fell in love with and brought home a Bad Idea. Her name is Bree. She's an English Mastiff puppy. (Yes, we know how big she'll get.) The userpic here is not her, but she's got similar coloring. She's seven weeks old and weighs just over ten pounds at the moment; this image says the dog is about 18 weeks old. WOW.

We've been wanting a second doggie for quite some time now, so I suppose it wasn't 100% impulsive. But when we go impulsive, we go BIG. Tuesday afternoon, FionaPie came home all atwitter over a litter of puppies her classmate's dad had brought to school that day. I called the school and they were kind enough to pass my phone number along. The classmate's mother called up that evening. Three puppies remained, all female. SCORE.

See, we knew from doggie day camp and other experience that Jack would get along better with a female (the bigger the better). Diermuid has also been hankering for a "dog-sized" dog. We needed the second dog to be exceedingly mellow to balance Jack's personality; and the dog needed not to need a ton of exercise/grooming because we know we just won't do that. Second Dog also had to enjoy the whole family instead of fixating on one person. ( So something like an English Mastiff was already on the short list. )

tough subject

Bree is a very difficult puppy to photograph. If she's holding still, it's because she's asleep...and then she's sort of a dark BLOB unless the light is really wonderful. The userpic for this post is a photo taken by PB, when the puppy fell asleep with her chin in the photographer's hand. ( Here's a photo taken outside this afternoon )