Full day of Firsts

Today Brooklyn got to experience the Dog Park for the first time. She had a wonderful hour and a half playing with all of the big dogs, and not as much fun playing with the small dogs. Bean and I had a great time talking with another couple around our age about dogs, living in Denton and the nightlife, and the Cowboys. Maybe we will make our first set of post-college friends- if we ever see them at the Dog Park again. We had so much fun, we plan to go as often as possible!

She also had her first trip to Petsmart, where we got a toy our new friends recommended, some training treats, and a sales pitch for puppy classes.

And finally, she went on her first Whataburger drive-thru expedition. No, she did not eat any of the food.

As for me, this was my first Sunday to wake up at 4:40am to let her out. Yesterday was Bean's first Saturday to do the same. The approximately 5am wakeup time works on a normal workday- it's even helped me get to work a little early every day. But on a Sunday when I don't have to work? Not so much fun.

But it is better than waking up and spending 15 minutes cleaning pee from half of the kitchen floor, putting an enzyme cleaner on it, waiting 5 minutes, and wiping that up- all after feeding the dog and cat, and before eating your own breakfast.

Having her has taught me a lot about putting someone before yourself and having patience. It's the perfect training ground for becoming a parent. It's letting me work out some of my analyzing and control isues before I really mess up my future kids.

I've now learned what it feels like as a parent to miss her terribly when we dropped her off at the kennel for a weekend and then to worry about our plane crashing and her being stuck there forever because we didn't leave the phone number with someone to pick her up if we died. I've also learned the pride in having a puppy that is well-behaved and sweet with people and other dogs- and how good it feels when other people rave about how cute she is. And today was the first time I got to see Bean talk proudly about how 'we' are training her and know that she is his baby too.