pepper

this is the story of how i met pepper, the tiny boxer puppy.

a couple days before i had to leave my amazing vacation with my family my mother came home from picking my brothers up from the bus and said that the neighbor's puppies were outside, getting lost. their mom liked to go out on doggy adventures and her new brood were getting big enough to follow her but not quite big enough to keep up so a bunch of them were losing their way up and down the mountain. the neighbors were't going to be home for a while and my mom told me they were boxers. TINY LITTLE BOXER PUPPIES. so i insisted we go and save them! and the course of my life was forever altered.

we found the momma dog and a few puppies and i walked all around and my mom drove all around. we called for them and popped them in a crate in the back of the car once we found them. after a while the mom started following our car a little too closely [she likes to chew on moving tires only. wha?] so instead of using her as bait for the one remaining puppy that we couldn't find we decided to put her in the trunk and get them home even though i was so worried about the remaining lost puppy. i didn't want any of them to get eating by wolves! but then as i hoisted her up i heard a quiet russling behind me and when i went to invstigate a saw a little white puppy with pouting eyes stuck behind what turned out to be an electric fence. she wasn't barking at all, just wishing to be saved, for her cute little puppy face to be rescued. how could i not, i ask you, how could i not?

after climbing past the fence, getting shocked a couple times, rescuing her from a field filled with mules, and looking into her droopy eyes i knew my heart had been stolen. i had to have her. i knew i'd always wonder what happened to her if she didn't come home with me. no matter how many pro/con lists craig and i made and how much my parents warned me i just couldn't be swayed. and overall, i'm glad because i love her and she makes my daughter SO HAPPY every single day which is totally priceless. but dude, having a puppy is ROUGH. it's like i have two babies and one wants to chew on everything and i can't put a diaper on her. sometimes i wonder if she loves me. sometimes i wonder if i love her as much as i thought i did. sometimes she just makes me cry. but mostly she makes us laugh, she snuggles with us, she plays with kahree all the time and tolerates a baby crawling all over her so patiently, and someday she won't have the impossible energy of a puppy and she'll be an old, sweet lady and we'll be so glad i found her. someday. if i don't release her into tragic first. i'm kidding! mostly. but if you've ever had a puppy [i don't recommend it, especially if you have a baby and an apartment too] you know what i mean. they are born that cute so that they can survive into adulthood. kinda like babies....