Release The Hounds!

There is a lot of excitement in our house this week, and it has nothing to do with the fact that we have finally unpacked the guest bedroom, parked the van in the garage, or the sale on perennials at Home Depot. The fifth member of our family, our dog Penny, arrives on Friday, thus completing our move. The fact that Grandpa and Grandma are bringing her out and will be staying for a week hasn't even registered on the kids' radar yet. They are ready to have their furry sibling here and I'm not sure they've talked about much else in the last few days.

January 2005

My husband and I have had Penny in our lives for 10 years now. She was our first child, so to speak. We got her as a puppy and babied her and kept her in the house and squeaky clean for four of those years. Then we moved into a different house, I gave birth to my daughter, and poor Penny's world began to change quickly. As a sleep deprived mama, I could no longer put up with the 4:00 a.m. cleaning session at the foot of our bed, the dirty paws, or the constant vigil I felt I had to keep those first weeks with a newborn in the house. I finally told myself that a border collie was destined to be an outdoor dog anyway. We live(d) on a farm, so I'm sure it was a young dog's heaven.

Outdoors she has been for the last six or so years, and now on Friday she will be an indoor dog once more. We debated whether or not to bring her out here on our journey. Would it be too stressful (for the dog and me)? Would the kids be able to handle having her in close quarters? Would the dog be able to handle having the kids in close quarters? As the move got closer though, the kids began to cling to Penny and it wasn't long after that that the decision was made to bring her with us. Ready or not.

Why didn't we bring her out here in August, you may ask? That was the original plan, and a lesson we had to learn -- research first, book your plane tickets second. After purchasing our tickets to fly out here, chasing our moving truck, we discovered that the airlines have a blackout period to fly pets in the cargo hold during the really hot and really cold months. We left August 14, and she couldn't fly until after Sept 15. Fortunately, we have a long list of friends and family that wanted to come and visit us, and my parents were gracious enough to agree to bring her on their trip out this weekend. The health certificate from the vet is signed, the arrangements are all made with the airline, and my son has made sure that our house is stocked with new chew toys.

Penny with her summer 'do ~ August 2011

I have to admit, I'm looking forward to having Penny here, too. She's mellowed considerably over the years and become almost a pleasure to have along on walks and bike rides. It will be nice to have a quiet companion in a house that has become so very empty and eerily silent these past few mornings when the kids are both at school. So welcome home, my furry friend. Your humans can't wait.