As I mentioned briefly in the last post, Shane and I came back from our marriage retreat with a new puppy!! Well actually, we brought TWO puppies back in our Jeep with us. Here's what happened. We saw these two beautiful dogs hanging around the resort in Pozanti. They were so sweet and let us come up to them and play with them. We've both been wanting a dog for awhile. Shane grew up with dogs in the home, and I liked the idea of having one. I never had an indoor dog, but we did have an outdoor dog - a sweet little beagle named Rusty. I'm not as big of a "dog person" as Shane, but I'm certainly not anti-dog. I love most all animals. Especially little furry, cuddly ones. So I've really been getting puppy fever. We have lots of friends with dogs, and we regularly dog-sit John & Wendi's dog Scrubs. After keeping Scrubs a few times, I noticed that I missed him when he was gone. It was comforting having him around. The house felt kind of empty without him. So I started asking Shane if we could get a dog. I really wanted a puppy, but we weren't sure how that would work out. It's not like Turkey has lots of dog breeders or pet shops. Most of the dogs here are mangy-looking strays in the streets. And there is such a high incidence of rabies here, I was a bit nervous about getting a dog in Turkey. But getting a dog from the States would be difficult... and expensive. We would have to go shopping for one on a trip home, then fly it back. I've heard from people who have done it that it costs upwards of $2000-3000 to ship a dog here. Not to mention the cost of buying one, getting its shots, etc. We just weren't prepared to do that. We looked into getting a dog in Germany, but couldn't find what we were looking for.
So as always, God provided exactly what we needed. We were on this retreat, and these dogs quite literally fell into our laps. They were young (4 months), beautiful, and sweet. And though they weren't as teeny tiny and adorable as I would've liked (I wanted a PUPPY puppy, like 8 weeks old)... they were still very cute. So Shane asked our Turkish liason to talk to the owners of the resort and ask if we could take one of the dogs. They were strays, but the owners had kind of taken them in. We didn't think they'd say yes, but we figured we'd go ahead and ask. Well, surprisingly, the answer was YES. However, there was a catch. They said we could take a dog, but if we took one we had to take both. Yikes. I wasn't quite ready for TWO dogs. We prayed about it, discussed it ad nauseum, and then on Sunday morning when we were ready to leave the retreat, our Turkish friend asked us, "What about the dogs?" Shane looked at me and I kind of shrugged, and he said, "We'll take them." I was like, "Are you SURE?" He just smiled and nodded his head. So we loaded the pups into our Jeep - all the way in the back - and headed home. They behaved perfectly. They were still and quiet, and they didn't make a mess. When we got home, I started to panic. TWO DOGS. But we went ahead and started preparing for them. We borrowed a kennel from John & Wendi, and we spent about $80 at the BX getting dog supplies. We gave them baths, which was a LOT of work. Those puppies were DIRTY!!! The water was a muddy brown. They cleaned up VERY nicely. Here are some pics:
So we had two new puppies, both clean and beautiful. But I started freaking out. Especially when we took them out on a walk and we ran into people who kept saying, "Wow they have big paws - they're gonna be HUGE!" I told Shane I didn't think I could handle TWO huge dogs. One, maybe. But two?? I could just imagine them tearing down my house. Plus it would make it much more complicated to go on a trip, trying to find someone to watch two dogs. I was reaching full panic attack level. I was starting to doubt our decision. But I talked to Wendi, and she told me it was okay to freak out. She said she did a little bit with Scrubs every now and then in the beginning. But she told me they thought of Scrubs as a child. They were committed to raising him. I made that same decision about these dogs - I did not want to give up on them and take them to a shelter. Wendi made me feel better when she said, "It's okay, though, if you decide you only want one - that's reasonable." So I talked to Shane about it, and I told him I really felt like we only needed one dog. I wanted to be able to focus all our time and energy on one.
Turns out God already had a family in mind for Bonnie's brother. Our chaplain, Ron Feeser, and his family had been eyeing the dogs as well! Ron even told Shane he'd fight him for the husky-looking dog. We had decided if we were to keep one, we'd keep the black one (the girl) anyway. I figured she would be smaller, and she just seemed a little more mellow. I wanted a calm dog. So we called Ron up that night and asked him if he was serious about the dog. He said he had already talked to his wife Amanda, and they definitely wanted him. Wow! Prayers answered immediately!! I felt a HUGE wave of relief. One dog - that I can handle.
How did we come up with the name? Well... when we left the resort thinking we were going to have TWO dogs, we were trying to come up with cute boy/girl combo names. John suggested Bonnie & Clyde. We thought that was cute. On the way home, though, I started trying out the names. I told Shane I really liked Bonnie, but I wasn't so sure about Clyde. Clyde is cute when used in conjunction with Bonnie, but by itself it's not so great. "Come here, Clyde! Fetch, Clyde!" Doesn't quite work. So I started calling him Buddy. Well, it didn't really matter because we gave him to the Feesers and they named him Aci (Turkish for "spicy"). We decided to stay with Bonnie because it seemed to suit her. I added Blue as a middle name - a tribute to her beautiful blue eyes and to one of my favorite movies, Gone With the Wind. We call her any combination of those names: Bonnie Blue, Bonnie, Bon-Bon, Blue, Baby Blue, Bonnie Baby, Bonnie Girl... you name it. She's got about a million nicknames. You would think it would confuse her, but she seems to know we're referring to her. She's very smart. And incredibly sweet-natured. We make fun of her for being so lazy - she sleeps a LOT. But she'll play, too. I'm sure we'll be posting a LOT about her, since she is like our child now! :)
Speaking of, I probably should let her out... we're working on toilet training. Ta-ta for now!
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