Monday, May 18, 2009

Introduction

There is an old Russian cartoon about a "Blue Puppy". If you were to ask my parents they would tell you that when I was about one year old, the only story I would want to hear over and over is the "Blue Puppy".
My dad is a hunter. When I was about 7 years old we got our first dog - "Russian Spaniel". It's a mid size working breed. I always loved dogs, at a very early age I new names of most of dog breeds. I remember there was a book in our house about breeds of hunting dogs and among them there was a picture of a Kerry Blue Terrier. Right then I was intrigued by the word "blue" in the name of the breed. When my parents got divorced my dad took our dog with him and for a few years we didn't have a dog in the house.
When I turned 18 my mom and I started talking about getting another dog. We discussed few breeds and she wasn't very excited about Kerry blues. One day I came home and found a cutest American cocker spaniel puppy, later when we came to USA I took that dog with me. Soon after I moved to the US I got married, my husband had terrible allergies to my cocker so unfortunately she had to stay with my mom and grand parents and couldn't come to leave with us.
My husband loves dogs and other animals ( although he would deny it) very much and it was very hard for us not being able to own a dog. When we finally bought our house we tried fish and parakeets but it could not come even close to owning a dog. One day we were at a party where the host had a Shih-Tzu. Of course we started talking about dogs and allergies and the owner mentioned that she thinks that Shih-tzus are hypoallergenic. My husband was quick to add that he doesn't think he is having an allergic reaction to the dogs in their house. I wasn't about to own a Shih-tzu, I wanted a bigger dog that I can take jogging, hiking and other places and not the dog that I will have to carry around, so I started my research on "hypoallergenic" dogs and people with allergies owning some of those dogs.
On the list of "hypoallergenic" breeds was a Kerry Blue Terrier. But of course my husband was not as excited as I was about the breed. He wanted a GSD or a pit-bull or something along those lines. After a lot of work I managed to convince him to give Kerries a shot. The next thing on my list was finding a dog. I wanted to be super cautious about bringing the dog home. I wanted to make sure that my husband would be able to live with it and we will not be facing two unpleasant options
a) return the dog
b) let my husband suffer for ever.
So I contacted Kerry Blue foundation. My hope was that maybe I could foster a dog. And do something like foster to adopt. Unfortunately they did not have any foster dogs available and I was hesitant adopting a dog without a trial. The thing about me is that I can be very indecisive. I would do my research and thinking to the point that I cannot make a decision anymore, but if decision is made I am not willing to wait much longer before putting the plan in action.
This was no different, I wasn't willing to wait a year or so for a foster dog to become available, so I looked elsewhere. Luckily for me I found what I was looking for. A breeder in PA had a dog available. Originally she kept the pup for herself, but decided that she had too many dogs already and was willing to place it. When I explained my situation to her, luckily for us, she agreed to let me keep the dog for a week, before we would make a decision to buy her. And this is how PennTerra`s Sky Reflection aka Mudpie aka Brandy came to our house. And here I was an owner of 7 months old "blue puppy".

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