When Dante died, it was awful. We had Dante for almost 13 years. He was a family member, not a pet. But his death was somewhat expected and when he passed away we had Chaucer to look forward to.
When Chaucer died, we were all in shock. It was horrible to lose a puppy, but his death also brought back the loss of Dante. It’s tough to miss a puppy that we only had for a few days. In some way, it felt like he never existed.
After losing 2 dogs in 6 days, my parents had to take a short break from dogs. They weren’t sure what they wanted to do next. After thinking about it for a few days, they realized that our family was missing a dog and they wanted to find our newest family member.
One of Chaucer’s brothers (originally named Rockwell) was still looking for a forever home. So my parents decided to meet him and after meeting him, he was ours.
We changed his name to Tucker (my mom picked it out) and his been a part of the family for about a week now. I have yet to meet him, but my parents do email me pictures of him pretty regularly.
From what my parents have told me, he is a very sweet and curious puppy. He’s super active but also getting very good at obedience (he already knows several commands). He’s met a bunch of people in the week that my parents have had him and everyone has fallen in love with him. And he’ll be starting puppy school this week so he will get some more socialization skills as well as learning more commands.
We didn’t announce Tucker’s adoption to people right away. We were terrified that something would happen to him like what happened to Chaucer. But Tucker went to the vet on Friday and got a clean bill of health.
I’m hoping to take a trip next month (when I’m supposed to be (f)unemployed again) so I can meet Tucker. If I don’t, there’s a chance that I might not get to meet him until Thanksgiving, and to me that’s unacceptable!
I’m aware that some people might think that we are forgetting about Dante and Chaucer because we got Tucker so soon. But that’s not the case at all. We still miss both dogs every day. Whenever I talk to my mom about how Tucker is doing, we are always comparing him to both dogs (Tucker has some big shoes to fill). Without a dog in my parents’ home, things didn’t seem right. It was too empty and quiet. And since one of my mom’s jobs has been running the pet therapy program at the hospital where my dad used to work (and where she is getting all her treatments), having a dog is practically her job.
I’m just glad that my parents were able to find another dog that needed a loving home. And Tucker seems to be fitting in perfectly with our family so far!
