About the Puppy

I've been waiting to write about the puppy that is going to join our family in the next year or so...I was hoping to report that the puppy was busy gestating in its mother's womb (if that's the correct turn of phrase); however, the lovely mom is not in Heat yet.  Curse you Mother Nature!  Well, not really.  Mother Nature will do her thing and that thing will happen when it happens.  It's just not going to happen before the blogging for the "31 for 21: Challenge" is over.  But that's okay, we'll still talk about the puppy.

Once dear Molly goes into Heat, she's going to be inseminated and then in a short nine weeks (man, don't dogs have it good!) a litter of puppies will be born and from that litter, they will choose a puppy to raise a puppy for Bradley.  This little Golden Retriever puppy is going change Bradley's world.  Our little boy without true social skills is going to get a furry little brother or sister that will help him fill in some important gaps.  Bradley is going to bond with someone other than his parents and his sisters that is going to love him beyond words, and who doesn't flourish under the onslaught of the true love that comes from a dog? Bradley is trying to put more sounds and words together everyday and who knows he may say this dog's name when they meet for the first time, or perhaps the day it comes to live in our house permanently.  One can only hope!

Maybe it's supposed to work out that Bradley's puppy isn't supposed to come until his birthday, how perfect would that be?  It took the love and kindness of family, friends, and strangers to bring this dog into Bradley's world, why wouldn't all that love pour over into cementing the type of bond these two are going to have?  It does, it will.  We look forward to the connection between the dog and Bradley, and the dog and the family.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've watched Bradley make the conscious effort to start bonding with his cats. He is interested in them and what they are doing, how they are moving, and what the odds are that he can actually catch one of them.  For their part, the cats are getting used to Bradley.  Now that he is moving around after them, they are offering more opportunity for him to approach them and pet them.  He experiments with petting, and then he tries out how to run the length of their tails, no matter how short.  The cats are incredibly patient, they don't stay long, but they stay long enough to assess him and wait for that moment when he looks ready to sweep everything off the ottoman and then they make a run for it.  They are smarter than Yuna's water bowl antics imply!  :-)

And it's not just the cats that he's starting to pay attention too.  Today Bradley got to see our neighbor and his two little dogs.  Not only was Bradley reaching out to pet the dogs, he was verbalizing!  He was making lots of great vocal sounds, some even stringing together, it was so cool!!!  I don't know what he was telling the dogs, but he had quite a few stories to share with them.  He was so excited by the puppies, he even shook hands with our neighbor.  Bradley is not one to reach out to anyone, he's a pretty shy little boy.  I loved seeing all of it.

So at some point in the next few weeks we will get the word, and I'll be pulling up all kinds of puppy gestation information while we chart the pregnancy and then celebrate the birth of Bradley's Buddy.  Once we have a name of the puppy that will grow to be part of our family, I'll show him pictures and do a lot of repetition to see if I can get him close to saying the dog's name, and maybe a little recognition to help him overcome enough of his nerves to approach and say Hi, and maybe even fall in love the day they finally meet.
We're definitely still pretty far away from the day his dog makes our home its home, but we are so much closer than we've ever been.  We are all very excited and since Bradley doesn't understand yet, we all carry a little extra inside us on his behalf!

So I guess as far as challenges go...for right now, we're just trying to maintain our patience and keep our excitement in control until the day comes when we get to welcome another furry child into our home.  So for the Challenge, I didn't get to spread the word that the puppy was on the way, but I did get to tell you that the way of Nature is bringing us closer (though I don't know that the pregnancy will happen at all naturally!).  HAHA.. But here's the good news!  For some reason, the first week of November is Down Syndrome Awareness WEEK, I don't know why this is but who knows, maybe I'll have some exciting news then!  ;-)

It's a comfort to all of us to know that the dog is going to be coming.  Aside from all the positive effects that the dog will give to Bradley and his life, it is something we can depend upon.  The rest of our world is just a bit crazy and up in the air right now, but at least the dog provides something solid to hold onto, and the girls always need that!