Words Cassidy Nunn
Photo Nunn Other Photography
“You sure have your hands full!” a passerby says with a chuckle as he stops to stare at us. I’m trying to grab my purse and close up the trunk of my car, but my hands and arms are full with my nine-week-old chocolate Labrador puppy. My almost two-year-old is clutching my leg in a tight bear hug and my almost five-year-old is racing in circles around me. “The family circus has arrived,” I say with a laugh. He smiles widely and continues on his way. My toddler suddenly releases her death grip from my leg and attempts a mad dash to run across the nearby field. I scramble to catch her and when she turns to look at me, a mischievous glint in her eye, she suddenly notices the puppy in my arms and stops in her tracks. She points and yells “PUPPY!” and thankfully races back toward me with a big grin. Having a puppy is a sure way to welcome more smiles in your day.
Many people have also told me recently that I must be a “glutton for punishment” when they heard that we’d brought a puppy into our lives.
And I’ll be honest, it can be a “tad” chaotic at times. But I knew it would be; that wasn’t a surprise. In the more trying times when the puppy has somehow pulled down a roll of toilet paper and is proudly shredding it in the living room, or when he’s snatched and raced off with one of the kids’ toys (which I can always tell has happened because he runs in a different, extra speedy “gear” that gives his act of theft away every time!), I try to breathe through the moment and remind myself to embrace the chaos. It’s the season of life we’re in anyhow – which is one of the reasons adding a puppy to our family now made sense, in my mind at least. We were already not always sleeping through the night with our youngest, winter is when we’re nestled at home more anyhow and have fewer weekends away on trips compared to the summer, and my work schedule is slower, which means more time to devote to puppy training and being home to let him out for the many pee breaks.
This puppy has also brought a lot of joy and laughter in a trying time of the world, as well as our personal lives. He’s the first dog we’ve ever had from such a young age (eight-and-a-half weeks old when we brought him home) and he provides us with endless entertainment with all his wild puppy antics. Every evening he’ll jump up without any warning and proceed to race at top speed around the house, his hind legs and tail tucked far underneath his little body, propelling him forward at top speed. The hyper laps will come to a sudden end when he flops onto his bed, exhausted and happy. He loves to climb into the kid’s kitchen learning tower with my toddler and the two of them will (usually) peacefully share the space. Occasionally my toddler with sternly tell him “no!” if he starts snuffling against her legs too strongly in his attempts to clean up any and all crumbs. She loves to give him snuggles and pats and the two are already creating a strong bond.
I’m hoping that for our girls, growing up with a puppy will teach them compassion, responsibility and how to care for others, amongst many other lessons that dogs can teach us.
“Before you get a dog, you can’t quite imagine what living with one might be like; afterward, you can’t imagine living any other way.” – Caroline Knapp
