Diesel…

Wow, has this week gone by fast! As promised, this is Diesel, the latest addition to the Neal family.

A couple of weeks ago, my mom asked when the last time was that I didn’t have a dog. It took a while to think it through, but I finally came up with 33 years ago. The first part of this month was incredibly quiet after losing Rye and our routines definitely changed. It was very lonely. So much so that I went all-in on finding our newest member of the family. Mission accomplished. Missing piece found. Dream come true. Task completed. And be careful what you wish for…

It all started last Thursday when I thought I’d found the perfect pup on a rescue website in Homewood, Illinois (about an hour away without traffic). Add in the traffic and that turned into a 2-hour nightmare that ended with me declining to adopt a beautiful, but shy puppy. For those who haven’t figured it out yet, I’ve got a pretty big personality and “shy” isn’t an adjective I would ever use for any of my animals… dogs, horses, and even the fish. Walking away from him was hard, but on the way down I got a call that another pup I’d looked at was available. He was only 15 minutes from our home and a visit was scheduled for Friday night. Let’s just say that Diesel made a great first impression.

I was greeted at the door by Pam, one of the Adoptable Friends, NFP founders, and right behind her stood the little man. He was excited, friendly, confident, and we bonded immediately. For an hour and a half we talked, laughed, toured, and the bond was formed. Pam was sure enough of our connection that she offered me the adoption and said I could pick him up the next day. Well, every night since has been quite the adventure and we couldn’t be happier.

Amy was out of town when I picked him up at noon. We spent the day on the couch just hanging out, a little baseball, a little tug-of-war, maybe a movie, trips outside every 20 minutes…things were going great. Only one “little mistake on the floor.” I thought – he is going to be so easy to acclimate and train…WRONG!!!

That first night I spent the night on the couch with him and quickly learned not to leave the TV on because he loves to watch and there’s no sleeping when you’ve got FOMO. I also learned that he loves to snuggle and his favorite place to sleep is on my face. Imagine trying to breath through a 22-pound fur pillow all night.

Amy arrived home Sunday night for just a few hours before she had to head back out early Monday morning. The meeting of the two couldn’t have gone any better. It was the ol’ “boy meets girl – love at first sight” scenario. They instantly bonded and Diesel spent the entire night trying to lick her face off. This was just what we needed. As you can see below, I believe our boy was happy, passed out on mom’s lap.

At 5:00 am on Monday, Amy was off again. She must have packed that wonderful puppy I brought home because I awoke to devil dog. Before I begin the description of the work week, you need to understand, he’s a rescue. Found in a field outside of Quincy, Illinois with his five siblings. I’ve had dogs almost my entire life, raising and training many puppies. But all of those dogs were from breeders, having spent their young lives around other dogs that were well-trained and acclimated to a home environment. Our new dude’s start in his short little life was fending for himself, peeing wherever and whenever he felt the need, and living a life with no rules.

Up to this point there had been a couple of accidents but nothing I couldn’t handle. This was my last week of school so he was heading to the crate for the first time, for just a couple of hours. Monday was a beautiful day and all the windows were open in the house. As I drove away, I kept a watchful eye out for flashing lights and sirens heading to our address because of the murder that must have been occurring, judging from all the wailing and crying coming from the house.

As far as I can tell, no one called the police and I returned to a perfectly sleeping puppy. No harm, no foul… or so I thought. Diesel truly is a Neal and was going to play to win, meaning, “if you’re going to make me kennel up, I’m going to make you pay.” This boy can pee on cue and he began using that ability to torment me through the rest of the week, often looking me dead in the eye and letting it fly. The cuddly little fur ball that loved to give kisses now decided that my face and most of my fingers were no longer necessary on my body. And, any item in the entire house became his new toy.

Tuesday brought rain and thunderstorms and our new little prince decided he was too good to get wet. I got him outside but only as far as the welcome mat, and that’s exactly where he decided to do his business. At least it was outside so I called that a win for both of us.

As much as we needed the rain, it could have picked a better day. Amy’s flight was delayed for several hours, not getting her home until after 10:00 pm. The excitement of her return accompanied us all the way to bed that night where Diesel discovered how much fun it was to chew on Amy’s hair. Welcome home, honey. You forgot to bring back that bundle of love that was here before you left.

On Wednesday Amy was lucky enough to work from home… or so she thought. Her office door had been closed up to this point so when Diesel discovered the new room, it looked like Black Friday after Thanksgiving at Target. The scramble was on to grab, pull, bite, and disrupt as much as possible. Thankfully Amy had a virtual conference for most of the day. I came home to an exasperated look that told a story of complete chaos that had been her morning. The office was covered in toys, dog beds, shoes, and dog food. Evidently she finally found a way to make him happy by letting him sleep on her lap as she worked. She gladly handed him off to me for the rest of the afternoon.

We’ve only made to Wednesday afternoon and I haven’t touched on half the stories I could tell you up to this point. But instead of writing on and on about our little monster, I’d rather just say how absolutely happy we are to have him in our lives. He’s worth all the trouble and then some. I am completely confident he’s going to be a fantastic companion, traveling the country with us, making us proud. So instead of more stories, I’ll just post more pictures of him at the end of the blog.

And here is this week’s link to Diesel and Lou Gehrig’s disease. I am so blessed to be able to welcome him into our lives right now. Statistically, training a puppy shouldn’t be possible at this point. I welcome the pain of every bite, the lack of sleep, the constant cleaning, and the endless interruptions to our lives. One droopy-eyed look, one kiss, one successful pee outside fills me with complete joy. My goal is to make him our mascot in the fight against ALS, having him accompany us on all the walks and events put on by the various ALS organizations across the country. I’m certain he’s going to get air time on all the major networks so stay tuned.

Can you believe I’ve made it this far though the post without including any music? Well, the wait is over. One of my all-time favorite Blake Shelton songs just happens to be about a dog, so here you go:

And I leave you this week with just a few more Diesel pics….at least they’re better than the harrowing travel pics of our last vacation.

Have a great weekend and thanks so much for hanging in there with me.

God bless.

C

Watching TV with dad.

The show was too boring.

“What, this is mom’s shoe?”

First trip to PetSmart.

Repurposing the log carrier.

You wanted a profile shot.

Ready for my first road trip.

And one more to say, “See you next week!”