Meet Emma

We’re so excited to introduce Emma Blossom Hofmann--the newest addition to our family! 

(Blossom was the name of my childhood Brittany spaniel.)

(DOGS DESERVE MIDDLE NAMES TOO.)

We adopted Emma as a rescue—she was formerly a stray and then living in a kennel until we made her ours. One friend sweetly said, “That dog is going from rags to riches.” Well, I certainly hope Emma sees it that way--right now, she's a tad overwhelmed. There are a LOT of question marks with this girl. We have no clue how she’ll ultimately adapt to living in a house. With people.

About Emma: She seems to be fully beagle, but nobody knows for certain, so we say she's a beagle mix. She’s estimated to be between 6 and 8 years old. She was rescued without having been spayed, so it’s possible that she has had a litter. Who knows what could’ve happened to her babies? Doesn’t it just break your heart? In the meantime, the rescue organization had her puppy-bearing girl parts fixed, so she’ll just have to put all of her maternal instincts toward dog-mothering her human girls.

Why did we decide to get a dog? Well, we always knew we’d have a dog SOME DAY. Chris grew up with a peekapoo, which he swears is an actual canine. I grew up with labs and Brittanys. Dogs are just part of childhood, and I didn’t want my kiddos to miss that. Of course, we’re pretty busy people, especially during the past few years.

And then: 

Although I currently telecommute 2 to 3 times per week, I learned our office building would be undergoing a major renovation, which meant I’d be working from home full-time until January. Chris and I realized that this would be a good opportunity to get a dog.

Chris’s work does a Paws for Cause event, and he sneakily invited me down to his building during lunch. To see dogs.

It worked.

The first dog I fell for was Lucy, a bassett-beagle mix, but she was afraid of men and children and needed other dogs around. So, basically a terrible fit for our family. But wait! The organization said they had a sweet beagle that we should meet. So, we drove to Virginia to meet her. They called her Mini but said she didn’t know her name (woohoo! green light to rename her EMMA!) and she was SO sweet with and curious about Charlotte and Lorelei. Mini/Emma was extremely gentle and had more personality than Lucy (Chris totally preferred Mini/Emma to Lucy).

I agreed that Mini/Emma was a good fit. I made it clear that it did not want a puppy or a young, high-energy dog. He or she need not even be cute, I said, and spunk was irrelevant. After all, we have all the cuteness and spunk we need with our human children.

What we wanted was a pet—a companion. We went through a surprisingly long, thorough process—multiple meetings, interviews, and a house visit. Finally, the paperwork was complete and Mini/Emma was just now Emma.

The drive home.

Since Saturday, things have gone . . . . okay. As far as temperament goes, Emma is a GEM. The sweetest dog ever. She's also neurotic and afraid of vacuums, garbage trucks, garbage/recycle cans rolling on driveways, the fan on the stove, lawn mowers--even those blocks away, and the coffee grinder. Despite her neuroses, she's very friendly and will approach pretty much any person.

Emma is also STUBBORN. This girl does not do a damn thing she does not want to do. I guess at her age, she's earned it. But Emma is living under MY ROOF now. And Mama is the alpha. 

She has lived on her own and with no rules for so long, but I do sense she wants to be part of our family. She desperately needs training, which we'll address once we've gotten her a bit more adapted and handled some of her health issues.

Which leads me to her health issues. After one seizure and a whole lot of the worst kind of poo (in my house! on white carpet!), I took her to the local vet. Everyone loved her because she's so sweet and friendly, and the vet said she was the PERFECT dog for kids Charlotte and Lorelei's ages. (Hooray! Validation!) The vet was unconcerned about the seizure (hot day, major stress, hadn't [wouldn't] eaten). But she did find a major and nasty ear infection, which was aggressively treated right then and there. (Oh, Emma HATED that!) We got a few more vaccines that Emma hadn't received at the rescue org that they recommended for dogs living around here, and the oh so important heart worm and flea/tick meds. And! The vet gave a prescription for an anti-poo drug!

Emma would not take it. I tried absolutely everything. Upon calling the vet this afternoon, I was informed I had the most finicky beagle EVER. While inconvenient for pills, I do hope this means she won't try to eat bottles of sunscreen (Samson), decks (Ruger), poop (Blossom), underwear (Peaches), etc. But! Our dear girl went all day without a poo disaster AND she finally FINALLY took her damn pill at dinner! (Concealed in melted cheese I let congeal as it cooled around the pill--plus two decoys. I integrated all three cheese blobs into her dinner and she ate all of it! Oh, hoooooooray!)

Next on our Emma to do list is a major dental cleaning--her teeth are in bad shape and more than one may need to be removed, but her tartar is so bad the vet couldn't tell for sure. Although I do think Emma's teeth hurt--she won't eat anything hard--I agreed with the vet that we need to allow her to calm the eff down and adapt to her new home before hitting her with the dental drama.

First day: Trying out the crate. Or trying to get away from us.

Mercifully, Emma sleeps through the night, quietly and happily contained in her cushy crate, which we keep in our bedroom. And have I mentioned how SWEET she is? As my friend said, you can't train sweet. In the meantime, we'll handle her health and training problems one by one and get her onto the right track, so she can thrive for whatever years we're lucky enough to get to share with her.

As each day goes by, I can tell she's getting a bit more comfy and adjusted and her personality is emerging. I am ridiculously smitten with her.

So, then: Meet our newest little Hofmann girl. Or, as Charlotte referred to her, the fifth person in our family.