365 days ago, Sean Moody woke up on a Sunday morning to me sheepishly saying, "So...I did a thing last night..."
"What'd you buy?" đ
"Well...I haven't bought it yet..." đ¤ˇââď¸
I then proceeded to tell him about how I was just simply searching the internet (Facebook specifically) for FALL puppies...y'know, for after we'd get back from Ireland....and how I found THREE puppies, just 45 minutes away, in Merritt Island.
In true space coast fashion, it felt like the stars might be aligning.
I had messaged to see if these puppies were still available just after midnight, assuming that all three would likely be off to forever homes by the time my message was received. But, around noon or so, I got a message back â there was one little puppy left.
The stars inched closer into alignment.
Sean asked if I thought she was the one. I cautiously said, "She could be..." as I studied this puppy's photo closely.
She wasn't quite what I had envisioned...but, still â there was something about her. So, I asked about this puppy's demeanor â "We need a calm one."
Whitey, the name she had been going by as her spoken-for-siblings were all much more liver & tick than she was, was the calmest - and cuddliest - of the litter.
Damn these stars...
Somewhere in the midst of our conversation Sean said something along the lines of, "If you think she's the one...let's go see her."
My eyes scrunched into a gaze in order to size him up for signs he might be pranking me, "Do not say things like that and joke with me, Sean Moody..." He assured me he was not joking, and yet still â I made him echo his initial sentiment 2-3 more times before I sent the next message asking if we could perhaps see the puppy on our next day off from work â July 4th.
Unfortunately, we'd have to come see her that night.
"Ah, there it is," I thought â the moment the stars would falter and prove that THIS puppy was not OUR puppy. It was already well into Sunday afternoon now, and I knew there was simply NO WAY Sean was going to go along with riding out to the coast to dangerously go "look" at this puppy on a Sunday evening.
In defeat, I relayed the message to him â it'd have to be tonight.
I can't quite remember what Sean said after that...but a little while later we were in the car headed to Merritt Island.
And just as the sun was setting, the stars were a little closer.
I tried desperately to not be excited, and we even said it would be "okay" if perhaps this puppy didn't work out...and, in fact, when we got there and saw her â I wasn't quite sure.
This puppy didn't seem to like us...didn't seem to have, what I had imagined would be, an immediate connection where she "chose us" â while one of her siblings gnawed on my shoelaces and wouldn't leave me a lone, this puppy seemed to want nothing to do with us. Still, we stayed and played with all the puppies for a while...coaxing this puppy out here and there, only to have her go sit in a corner again to play with a little cat toy. Later, Sean would say that he could see my mind reeling â mostly, I was wondering if I was forcing this. It wasn't happening at all how I thought it would...and how do you even know if a puppy is YOUR puppy? On one last try, I swooped the puppy up from her corner, and placed her on my lap. And that was the moment the stars locked in place and we both knew she was ours...
Kenobi suddenly seemed to realize that I was pretty awesome, and the instant her little tail began wagging â without discussing it or so much as a look between us â Sean and I both knew she was our girl. We nearly took her home that night, but knowing we had A LOT we needed to prepare for â we decided we would wait a few days and bring her home later in the week, on July 4th. đ
Her name, chosen easily two+ years prior to us finding her, and held in tight secret to prevent thievery of such an awesome name, was always Kenobi.
Echo, was so that she would (hopefully) "echo" Kimbee's awesome chillness (still TBD) â and, of course, a nod to the GSPs early ancestors, the velociraptors. đ And, the stars, if you couldn't already tell â have a lot to do with her (and our) story.
We knew finding a pup like Kenobi on Florida's Space Coast was a rare occurrence, and something only the universe could've written.
So, we made it a full year. And, trust me, it wasn't all-pretty, all-the-time. But, even at her worst, and our most exhausted â she really was (and is) a very good puppy.
I've heard horror stories of not-so-good puppies...and, truthfully, our biggest complaints sounded a lot like:
⢠"Why does she pee so much? Like, she NEVER STOPS peeing?!" This dog still lives by the door đ¤Śââď¸ and stiiiilllll loves to psych us out just to go outside to sniff blades of grass, lay in the sun, and steal pine cones when you aren't looking â but the day she found the damn door (maybe 2-3 weeks in) and the months where we deemed her (even mostly) potty trained were award worthy moments in our history.
Potty training, for the record, is a lot like Fight Club. YOU DON'T TALK ABOUT IT BECAUSE WHEN YOU DO...well, that's the exact moment they prove you wrong and have accidents in front of company. đ (also, for the record, she never-ever went #2 in the house and, for that, we are eternally indebted to her.) đ¤Ł
⢠"Will we ever sleep again?" My Fitbit was RAGING with how much sleep I did.not.get between last July and probably...September. đ
We had a set schedule where WE were waking Kenobi up every 2 hours or so the first month or so, then we extended that as she got older. She never once woke us up, we were always the ones disturbing her. As the resident night owl, I took the "late shift" around 11:30/12 - we split the 2am break - and Sean took the 4am-ish shift. Inevitably, I was up with the pups nearly every morning before 6am. The first night I got 5 whole hours of consecutive sleep (when we finally nixed that 2am break) was like downloading a shiny new person that functioned like a real-life-human vs. a zombie.
Also, on this note, I don't understand why Daylight Savings is still a thing â any time we shift, this puppy thinks "before sunrise" is our new time to party. đ
Kenobi has brought so much in to our lives, that it's nearly impossible to remember what they were like before her â she is sassier and more challenging (in many ways, but surprisingly not all) than Kimbee. For example, she still thinks "come" is a suggestion that we may or may not always have to follow. đ¤Śââď¸ But she has mastered many tricks, is absolutely the class clown, cuddles like no one else (I think she probably spends 87% of her time on my lap), and is still a pipsqueak weighing in at just 34lbs. At 14 months, she's also still holding on to her "Galaxy Eyes" too so that if you catch her in the right light, her eyes have an icy blue center that then bursts out into different ambers, greens, and blues.
Like her entire story, it's not lost on me that the pup with the galaxy eyes is ours. đ