We are officially DOG PARENTS! Meet Chip Schlueter, who we rescued from OC Animal Care on June 15th, 2019. It has been just a little crazy over here adjusting to new married life, getting home from our honeymoon, and jumping straight into parenthood with this little guy. I know you guys probably have a ton of questions, so I’m taking you through the beginning of this process! How the topic of dogs came up, how we found Chip, getting him while we were on our honeymoon, and how it’s been since he’s been home with us. Grab some popcorn (or wine) and let’s start from the beginning.
Wednesday, June 12th
Tim casually brings up getting a dog. This isn’t out of the ordinary, because we’ve been talking about getting a dog for awhile. I wanted to get one right after we got engaged, but Tim shot it down pretty quick. He said we needed to be married first which was fair since we didn’t live together, so I dropped the whole thing and stayed busy with wedding planning. We’ve literally been married for 4 days at this point, and Tim tells me he’s browsing our local animal shelters website. I jumped in on the idea because I of course wanted one! But I didn’t think of it too realistically because we were leaving for Fiji on Saturday, so it just wasn’t possible. Tim continues to browse and finds an app called Pet Finder and searches on there too. In the meantime, I’m getting ready for Fiji.
Thursday, June 13th
Tim finds puppies. Oh boy. These particular puppies were a group of 3, that were dropped off at the animal shelter Thursday day. Tim tells me he’s going to look at them on his lunch break tomorrow (Friday) and drive over to look around. I immediately got anxious with a million thoughts going through my head! My initial ones were 1. You are not getting a puppy without me 2. We’re leaving for Fiji in 2 days and 3. …AH! I go to bed thinking he might not go after all.
Friday, June 14th
Its Tim’s lunch break. He’s heading over. Crap. When Tim went, there was the 3 puppies he saw who had a pretty big crowd around them. We learned when puppies go into the shelter, they are gone pretty quickly. I thought the puppies were adorable, but I wasn’t set on them by any means. I met Tim and since we were there, we walked around and looked at the other doggies…just because I guess. Within the first couple cages I stroll down I happened to find these 2 pups— and I was shocked that no one was paying attention to them!
This brother and sister duo was dropped off on Thursday. I was pretty much immediately fell in love and decided in that second that I wanted them both. Tim and I’s goal is to have 2 dogs, and this worked perfectly in my head. 2 puppies that are both adorable, they’re brother and sister, boy and girl… it’s meant to be! I wanted to put a deposit down on both that day, which means you get them if the owner doesn’t come. Since we didn’t come for those puppies, and we were leaving on our honeymoon in 2 days, we decided to sleep on it and see if we could figure it out and if we still wanted them the next morning.
Saturday, June 15th
The dog shelter opens at 11 and we (thought) showed up right on time, which is when it opens. We were going to see if they were still available and how we could hold them until we got back from Fiji. When we walked in to go say hi to them, there was a crowd. I instantly got anxious and didn’t even want to say hi to them- I just wanted to go straight to the office and put a deposit down. I had a freak out, told Tim we needed to beat all of the other people, and basically sprinted back to the front office.
Once we got to the front desk, they informed us that the female was already taken—someone had put a deposit down. The only way we could get her is if on her pick-up day, the deposit people didn’t show up. So, how it works is you put a deposit down, and the owners have a few days to come get the dog if it is found. If no one picks it up, they go through the process of neutering the dog if it isn’t already, shots, and everything else. Then, you have one day to come get the dog you put a deposit on. If you don’t come that day, the dog then becomes available again and you don’t get your deposit back.
After the worker told us that, I told Tim we needed to go find the people that put the deposit down and talk them out of it. I’m not kidding. I wanted to find them and tell them that these pups couldn’t be separated, and that we were willing to take both and keep them together. I mean come on— look at that picture! They LOVED each other and were the sweetest things. It puts me to tears writing this right now because it breaks my heart that they couldn’t be kept together. But, everything happens for a reason so I know deep down it just wasn’t meant to be. But…I’m still sad.
After we figured out the female was taken (which we now know was named Luna), we wanted to get the male. But if you read up a little in this post, you have to get the dog the day it’s available or you’ll lose it. The day he was going to be available we were for sure going to be on our honeymoon, and they do absolutely no holds. I was upset because I wasn’t sure how it was going to work, but we knew we had one possibility. We could ask Tim’s parents to pick him up for us while we were on our honeymoon, just for 2 days since they said he was supposedly going to be ready on Friday, June 22nd. We called and were shocked, thrilled, and anxious to hear that they agreed because…that meant we were getting a puppy!
Tuesday, June 18th
Uh-oh. Not Friday! The shelter called Tim’s mom and informed her that he would be ready for pick-up tomorrow. It happened SO fast, and we were not expecting him to be able to come home that early. Neither were Tim’s parents! We instantly felt guilty because one, they had to have him longer than we expected. And two, he was going to be very confused when we went to pick him up and take him yet to another home, because we weren’t coming home until Sunday.
Wednesday, June 19th
Chip is ready for pick-up! We’re not sure why he was ready way sooner than we expected, but in the end we were ok with it. We figured since both him and his sister had a deposit, the shelter probably just wanted to get him home to us. He stayed with Tim’s parents from Wednesday to Sunday until we got home, and then it was time for him to meet us.
Sunday, June 23rd
Straight from the airport to get our fur baby. He was such a sweetheart, but we could also tell he was comfortable at Tim’s parents house. He was confused when we took him, but got settled in as soon as we got home. By settled in, I mean immediately peeing and marking everything he could!
WOW!
What a secret to keep. I’m honestly pretty proud of myself that I haven’t let it slip before today, because I can’t tell you how many times I almost did let it slip. As you can tell, we have been non-stop busy over here and have had a LOT going on! We truly jumped right into doggy parenthood, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. When Tim and I do something, we do it with our whole hearts. We both love hard and that’s what I love so much about us as a couple. Some people (let’s be real, a lot of people) think we move to quickly. We got engaged too fast, the engagement wasn’t long enough, the wedding was planned quickly, we should’ve waited longer to get a dog…but here’s the truth. Tim and I know what we want, and we have for awhile. So our motto is, if you know what you want…why wait? And now here we are— less than a month into marriage, already as a family of three. We couldn’t be happier and we truly couldn’t have picked a better dog. Chip already has both of us wrapped around his finger and we are in love! I figured you guys would have questions, so below I’m answering the ones I’m anticipating on getting the most. If you have more, go to Instagram stories for a Q + A!
Why did you name him Chip?
Tim and I both growing up had dogs, and both of our families did themes for animal names. Tim’s dogs were named after mountains and my dogs were named Hispanic names. We decided to go with food for our dogs because there’s just so many options! We chose Chip on the spot, actually. But we went with it because whenever we do get a second dog, there’s a lot of things that go with Chips that are food duos. Chocolate & Chip, Nacho & Chip— these are just ideas, but you get the point.
What kind of dog is Chip?
Honestly, we have no clue. The animal shelter labeled him as a German Shepard, but the vet definitely think he’s a mix. The first place winner for right now that we see him growing into (we won’t for sure know until he’s older), is a Sheprador. German Shepard + Labrador mix.
What is Chip’s story?
Literally the only information we got was that Chip and his sister were dropped off at that shelter, and that was it. Everyone seemed to be really unsure and kind of skeptical, so who knows.
How old is Chip?
Chip is approximately 14 weeks old. His birthday we’re saying is March 14th, but that’s our guess since we have no background on him.
How big will he get?
Regardless of his breed, we know without a doubt he’s going to be a big dog. He’s 14 weeks old and he is already almost 40 pounds. Kinda scary! Im guessing he’s easily going to be over 100 pounds and a big boy. We’re hoping by the time he’s fully grown, which will be when our lease is up, we’ll out and in a place with a yard for him. If anything it just puts the pressure on and now motivates us even more!
Life as a Family of Three
It has officially been one week with Chip today that we’ve had him home with us. During that time, we’ve learned quite a few things about each other! Potty training is pretty easy, as long as you take him out every 30 minutes. If you don’t, there goes that. He also LOVES to sleep! The first night we had him we were worried we were going to be up all night, but nope. Chip sleeps through the night and doesn’t go to the bathroom which is huge. He holds it all night and waits until Tim takes him out in the morning! We also learned that he hates being left alone. Like hates it. He whines, barks, howls, and destroys the apartment every time we leave! It’s definitely added a good 30 minutes to leaving now because of the whole process we have to do. The vet instructed us to keep leaving him alone more often, as he needs to get used to it. We leave the radio on, toys, treats, but it doesn’t matter. He just wants us. Chip is a typical puppy but his personality is definitely starting to show and we’re excited to see him grow more.
The secret and all the info is out and I can finally breathe, ha! We’re both so excited to be sharing Chip on here now and obviously have him as apart of our lives. You’ll be seeing this guy A LOT as he is now the official third member of our family! Thank you so much for reading and I can’t wait to start sharing dog stuff now.
XO,
Danielle Alana
