Jasper Doodle...

The new love of my life. My puppy Jasper. He's a bischon frise, about six months old now and starting to enter the teenage years of puppyhood. He's become sassy and disobedient at times and I find it hilarious. I never had the full puppy experience since my first dog, Bogie. Bogie was first a rescue to someone we knew who could no longer take care of him. So technically we were his third owners. When we officially owned him he was about eight years old. He lived very lavishly as a family member in our house until his passing this past September at age 16. That is a significant amount of time for a dog to live. No dog will ever outshine Bogie. He was possibly the best dog anyone could ask for until he got sick. His heart was enlarged and the medicine for his heart made his kidneys shut down so he was always having accidents. He had a terrible cough as well due to the fact his lungs were being pressured down by his enlarged heart. It was really upsetting to see him get this old and sick, and people asked us why we kept from putting him down. I could never put a dog down unless he was in absolute pain, but how do you know if a dog is in that much pain? They obviously cannot speak to you and tell you what their precise ailment is. I think we made the right choice in letting him go on his own, but then again I was not there when he crossed over.

Onto happier times. My hilarious new puppy Jasper, who we never thought we would have. My sisters and I really believed that my parents were not going to get another dog, we didn't even consider a puppy. But inch by inch we convinced them even though in a few years my youngest sister will be off to college. But now that I look at it, Jasper is their newborn child. My parents are ridiculous. One day they both took him to the vet like he was an infant going to his first checkup. As I saw them return, pulling into the driveway with this little white ball of fluff in my dad's masculine arms in the passenger seat of the car. I was laughing hysterically by myself watching from the window.

At one point in time he was smaller than a single Ugg boot. It was adorable.

Strutting through the living room. 

Whenever he drank out of this bowl he was mad that there was a paw print design on the bottom so he would always splash it, thinking it would come out of the water. 

Eating leaves, nothing unusual to Jasper. 

I forced him into a sweater that was once Bogie's. I know I'm terrible. It was only for a few minutes I swear! 

You do not understand how badly I wanted a puppy growing up. I probably begged at least three times a day, constantly bringing up the subject and annoying the hell out of my parents. But now that I have a puppy I can see why it's so much better now to have him then it would be when we were all so young and dealing with other things. When we got Bogie he was already trained, slept most of the time, very calm and mellow, and was playful when we wanted him to be. He was perfect. When my parents and sister went to pick up Jasper at the breeder in Long Island, they said he was the runt of the litter and the quietest. They decided to pick him due to his personality (at that point in time ha) and from how cute he was. He was only three pounds when they first got him! Now Jasper is about 7 pounds and showing off his personality more and more each day. It's sad that I cannot see it since I am away at school, but I know he must be a lot of work.

For some reason we started calling him Jasper Doodle.. the Doodle just came along after a while and it sounds good for some reason. The funniest part about my parents getting this puppy is that my dad did the math to see how old he will be when the dog is around the age that Bogie died, and my dad will be in his mid seventies. He joked, "the dog just might outlive me!"