Zen and the Art of Adopting a Puppy
When I first brought this little furball home, she started galloping around the living room like a teeny tiny roadrunner from the cartoon. Her skinny legs carried her from the couch, around the coffee table, under the chair, then back to the top of the couch. She eventually stopped, looked at me with her tongue out and panting slightly, and I think we both had the same thought: so now what?
I waited years before adopting a dog, even though the dog lover in me was dying to get a puppy into my apartment! But, being an adult, I knew that owning a dog would take a lot of time, money, and patience. I waited until I felt like I could really and truly be responsible for another living being.
I found Mango through an app called Petfinder. It connects unwanted animals from shelters across the country to their forever families. When I met her, that little terrier mutt put her head on my shoulder and gave my ear a teeny tiny lick, and that was it, I knew that she would come home with me and my husband.
Quickly, reality set in. Caring for a puppy is hard! And not just in all of the ways you would suspect. Of course we have to walk her, feed her, brush her, take her to the vet and all of those expected responsibilities, but there were many surprise challenges too.
There were a lot of emotions involved.
Mango had lived the first six months of her life in a crate in Georgia, until she got to Amber’s Angels, an adoption service attached to a vet’s office in upstate New York. Bringing her to our apartment in Hoboken, NJ was a big change for her. She was constantly surrounded by noise, and she latched on to me immediately for comfort. She was only six and a half pounds when drove her home, and when scared, she would start to shake. At first everything scared her; cars, elevators, automatic doors, other dogs, other people. I felt an instant need to protect her.
On day two of puppy ownership, a dog walker came into the apartment, someone who would take her outside while we were at work. Suddenly Mango turned from a sweet scared shaking dog into an attack dog. She was growling and barking. Being responsible as her owner I felt a million emotions at once, embarrassed that she was so aggressive, upset that she wasn’t the perfect pooch she had seemed just a few days before and mostly scared that we had somehow gotten a “bad dog.”
I cried when the woman left as Mango slept exhausted on my lap worried that we wouldn’t be able to handle her aggression. That’s when I realized, we were adults who had made the decision to adopt a dog. She wasn’t a “bad dog,” we were in it for the long run and would have to responsibly train Mango. Through internet research and patience, I realized that Mango’s growling and barking probably had more to do with her being scared of new people and environments than with her personality. We learned how to more gently ease her into her new home by creating a safe space in her crate and introducing her to new people in an outdoor setting. In just a week she was happily greeting visitors at the door!
Dogs require focus.
I am addicted to my phone. I admit it. I love knowing what’s going on on Facebook and Pinterest, texting and reading articles. But with a new puppy, I look down at my screen and she is ready to jump on a table, or she is chewing furniture. The most common thing that happens when I’m busy liking my friends vacation pics is that Mango picks something weird up off the ground. Dogs explore new things through smell and taste. You would not believe what she finds on the ground. I’ve snatched all kinds of things from her: a t-bone, a jalapeño pepper, an Italian sausage, the skin of a ham, chewed gum, and all kinds of pieces of plastic and glass.
The best way to avoid going on an expedition inside Mango’s mouth is to watch her every move. So I started leaving the phone behind on walks, and putting it in another room while we were playing in the apartment. Through constant attention, she became less likely to vacuum up everything in her path.
But something else happened when I put down my phone and started paying attention to what Mango was exploring, I explored too. After a few days, she stopped shaking with fear and started sniffing with curiosity. Everything was new and exciting to her. People in hats, tree-roots, steps, children, the elderly, birds — especially birds. Anything and everything fascinated her. And even though I wasn’t seeing all of these things for the first time, I started paying attention more to the world around me. I met my new neighbors for the first time, a few of which had also just gotten dogs. We even went to a puppy birthday party with other dog owners in our building. Turns out, there is a whole world just on the other side of my phone screen!
There are a lot of laughs.
Saving Mango and introducing her into a stable, loving home has been more rewarding than I could have dreamed. I’m going to leave you with my favorite videos of Mango, which pretty much sums up her personality.
If you have questions about adoption or training a dog, write us in the comments!
Also you can follow the adventures of Mango Muppet on Intagram!
