The Gang Gets a New Member

John and I are proud to announce a new addition to our Gang: little Chewie Bedtelyon.  We have dreamt of adopting another dog son since adopting Dexter and finally took the plunge last Saturday.  Our final push came from the desire to provide a friend for Dexter, as he so enjoys playing and rough-housing with the cats.  Kiefer and Elliot are extremely tolerant of his antics, but can only take so much.  They are just cats.  After seeing how excited and happy Dexter gets to play with his next door neighbor, Wesley, we knew he needed his own buddy.

Baby D on his first day as a Bedtelyon.

A-tisket, a-tasket, a boring cat in a basket...

For months, I have scoured Petfinder.com searching for available dogs in our area and discovered a local organization called Dog World Rescue.  Friday night, John and I were looking over some dogs and realized the following day DWR was holding an adoption event at our local Petsmart.  So, after filling up on some chocolate chip pancakes Saturday morning, we headed down to check out the dogs, never really thinking we'd be proud parents once again by the day's end.  Of course there were plenty of adorable boys and girls there, but we knew we wanted a puppy and they had three chow/shepherd/lab mix siblings and one little black and white schnauzer/dachshund/terrier/border collie... thing named Rascal.

Elf, one of the other puppies we considered.

While John has always wanted a larger, "manly" dog, we decided in the end, the best fit for our family would be another little guy.  I'll admit submitting an application for Rascal was a little nerve-wracking, thinking about the efforts of training another dog and the added financial commitment, but in the end, we knew we were ready for a new son.  DWR was able to conduct the home visit that evening and by 10:00 Saturday night, we had our boy.

Chewie during our home visit.

Not a fan of typical pet names, we brainstormed forever trying to think of the perfect name for Rascal.  Our other sons' names come from TV shows (Kiefer... Kiefer Sutherland, Elliot... Elliot Stabler from Law & Order: SVU, and Dexter... from the show Dexter), but unfortunately, nothing we could come up with really seemed to fit our guy.  We branched out to movies and naturally came to Star Wars and Chewie just seemed to be a natural fit.  While he's really nothing like his namesake (not a Wookiee, cannot operate a crossbow nor co-pilot the Millennium Falcon... at least not to our knowledge) we think it's a fun, cute name.  We're not sure what breed(s) he is, but he sure is cute and we're excited to see what he grows up to be.

Look at that sweet face.

He's so small!

One thing is for sure, little Chewie is extremely intelligent, loving, and playful and has been a wonderful addition to our family thus far.  Elliot, surprisingly, took an almost immediate interest in him and has been having a great time dashing around with him and Dexter.  Dexter was at first a little hesitant and confused, but now they spend their days playing tug-of-war, chewing bones, and biting each other's faces and their nights cuddling in bed with us.  Kiefer in his usually suspicious and stand-offish ways is still just watching from afar, but has been showing progress.  We're sure in no time, we'll have four BFFs on our hands.

Two peas in a pod already. :)

Curious boys checking out the camera.

Mutual of Alexandria's Wild Kingdom!

It's amazing, I think, for us to have found such a wonderful little piece of paradise inside the Beltway.  At our previous condo we rented, we were spoiled with wooded views out all of our windows, including daily sightings of deer.

Five (or so) female deer seen from our balcony

When moving from the condo to our new home, we were most sad about not having such beautiful wooded views and would miss the family of deer.  Well, I'm happy to say, the new place isn't as disappointing as originally feared.  In fact, we do have enough trees that I feel like we have "woods".  And!  I've seen deer.  Actually, I've had many animal sightings.  Sadly, I don't have any pictures of my encounters since Dexter and I generally see them late at night when it's very dark.  We've seen deer two or three times, a large (twice the size of dexter) raccoon on two occasions, and our neighborhood coyote at least three different times in our backyard.

Our leafless trees and the ever elusive...bichon!

I shouldn't forget the birds and squirrels.  Amanda's parents bought us a suet bird feeder and suet block of seed as a house warming present.  We installed it over Thanksgiving weekend and it really increased the bird and squirrel activity in our little haven.  They went through the entire thing in just two days!  I've seen many woodpeckers, a blue jay and many little birds I can't identify...yet.

Random picture of Dexter

We're also very happy to have private outdoor space.  Dexter loves to run and play.  Our next door neighbors recently got a puppy (Wesley) and he and Dexter love to romp.  Dexter gets so excited when we hear them outside he goes to the door and whines.  They'll run and play and chase each other until they both lay down in the grass/moss panting.  It's adorable.

Dexter and Wesley eating sticks

On a sad note, our neighbors are moving.  I'm sure Dexter will miss Wesley very much.  It's such a treat for Dexter to have a friend to chase around in the backyard. I think we may end up getting another puppy of our own.  Maybe in the spring.  It's still being discussed, but Amanda's really for it.

End.