Paws to Claws

Well hello there!  I know it's been a while since I posted last {I'm going to post about that soon, promise!} but I'm back today with an awesome link up thanks to Mallory who blogs over at From California to Kansas.

When I first saw this link up floating around Twitter this morning I went right to the source, Mallory, to ask what it was all about.  And basically it's just a chance to talk about those adorable pets of ours!  How awesome is that?

She's also hosting a pretty awesome PET SWAG giveaway so be sure to head on over there to enter for your pet's chance to win!

In order to give you the full story on Bo I'm going to refer you back to a post I did in January.  God Bless Outlaws Like Me was highlighting one of my favorite artists, Justin Moore.  In that post I shared the short version of what happened with Duke, our last family dog.  Honestly, as I was thinking today about what I wanted to share and how every time I thought of Duke I would tear up and I'm definitely doing that now.  He's very much missed by everyone in my family.  So, as you read the beginning of Bo's story I hope you keep that in mind.

Miranda Lambert's song Over You, in addition to Justin's Heaven, does a pretty good job of summing up my feelings with Duke.
But you went away
How dare you?
I miss you
They say I'll be OK
But I'm not going to ever get over you

Love you always and forever puppers!

Okay...

Now that we have the sad part out of the way we can move on to the happy stuff.

My dad and I were ready for another dog, my mom not so much.  But thanks to a little pre-marital agreement between my mom and dad we would be getting another dog.  While still incredibly sad about losing Duke two weeks later my mom, dad, and I were looking at puppies!

And on my birthday!

We saw two litters that day, one litter older quite a bit older than the other.  After seeing the parents of the older litter we decided they weren't what we were looking for in a Gordon Setter.  And after seeing the mom of the second litter and having a pretty good idea of what the dad looked like thanks to similar blood lines as Duke we decided we would go with them.

As we were looking at the second litter I was constantly picking up the same pup, boy #7.  Boy #7 was also the biggest of the bunch.  I may have biased since Duke was 83 pounds but I wanted a bigger boy.

Not that I had a lot of say in which dog we got since it wasn't going to be mine it would be my dad's hunting dog that would double as a family dog but we did end up picking boy #7 to be ours.  I can't remember if it was later that day or the next that my dad called and reserved boy #7 as ours but it happened quickly.  He got a real collar so other interested parties knew he was spoken for.

We went a month without a dog.  And let me tell you it was the longest month of my life. Especially since those last two weeks with Duke he was in the house all the time so it was eerily quiet when we didn't have him, or any dog, around.

We also had strange things happen around the house without a dog.

Like the time we had a turkey take a stroll through the yard.  That definitely did not happen while Duke was here and it hasn't happened since we got Bo.

Food scrapes we normally saved for Duke sat untouched on plates and ended up being thrown out once we realized he wasn't there.

Finally the day came that we could pick up our eight-week-old boy.  I came up with the name Bo during that month we waited and it was agreed upon that was the name he would have.  Some other possible names had dealt with the TV show NCIS and are definitely in my head for when I get a pet of my own in the future.  {Gibbs anyone?!}

My mom, dad, and I picked Bo up with his tiny blue color and leash.

We ended up stopping at the vet on our way home to make his first appointments with us.  He weighed 12 pounds.

He is now almost 2-years-old {May 15th} and weighing in around 60 pounds.  Not quite as big as Duke which I'm thankful for since Bo thinks he's a lap dog sometimes and I cannot imagine 80 pounds of dog on my lap.

Bo is also the first pretty much full time house dog.  Spring time = mud around here so he regularly gets carried to the tub to be rinsed off so we don't have muddy puppy tracks all over the house.  Imagine carrying 80 pounds up stairs and putting him into a tub...yeah, not easy!

I wish I could invite you all over to hang out for a day to experience the personality that is Bo because let me tell ya, he has quite an interesting and funny one!  Pretty much daily he does something that makes us laugh.  And sometimes he turns to look at us while we're laughing as if to say, "what?!"

I'll leave you with some pictures I've snapped over the last two years.

Please let me know if you have any questions or just want to talk more about pets!  I am definitely one of those dog people who believe with all of my heart that Bo is a member of the family and is almost a people. ;)