How our home got yet another eternal sunshine

Photo of Alexa
Alexa is not only a caring mother, but a beautiful lady, as well.

The story of the arrival of our newest pet family member is long and complicated but simple at the same time.

Soon to become a mom

Half a year ago, a veterinary clinic owned by a friend and colleague accommodated a medium-sized female dog, Alexa. Alexa was a mixed breed but remotely like a wire-haired dachshund. She arrived from a local shelter to be spayed—a normal procedure here before any dog is adopted.

The checkup aroused the doctors’ suspicion—Alexa was going to become a mom soon, within less than a month! What could they do?

Spaying was postponed, and since Alexa was friendly with people and other pets, she stayed at a clinic for the rest of her pregnancy.

She was loved and cherished by the staff. They checked on her well-being daily, and every staff member awaited the delivery with excitement.

The happy day—or night to be precise—was May 13, when Alexa gave birth to three beautiful baby girls and three beautiful baby boys.

Alexa feeding her with puppies
Alexa and her puppies. If you look closely enough, you’ll notice a white puppy in the middle.

All of this happened in a remote town, several hours by car away from where we live. The beauty is that we travel to this distant, deserted place about once a month for work; sometimes only one of us goes, sometimes we go both, and often our kids travel with us.

We met Alexa a few times before and after she gave birth, and we were amazed at what a gorgeous dog she was. Our admiration was not only for her looks but for her manner and her care of her puppies, as well.

A puppy for a friend

Quickly, as always happens, the puppies approached the age of two months. They still needed their mom and litter-mates, but that is when the staff started looking for the puppies’ new soul mates. At this point, we had no intention to adopt them. With busy schedules, everyone thinks of themselves and their schedules.

But one baby boy would definitely be perfect for Maris’ sister. After all, several years ago, they had told her oldest daughter that, of course, they will have a dog, but only after she was a bit older. At age ten, perhaps. And guess what? She will turn ten this fall and still remembers that “promise.”

A few phone conversations and e-mails with photos later, they agreed to go take a look. Of course, if you have four kids who are desperate to have a dog and drive more than 200 kilometers, there must be something wrong with the puppies if you come back empty-handed.

So their family of six acquired a new member—a baby boy dog.

Alexa's puppy - DzerisOr, to be crystal clear, one happy chap got a new home with so many kids that boredom won’t be an issue for him. But what about us?

We should get one, too! Just kidding… or not

There was this beautiful baby girl puppy who was nicknamed “angel daughter” by the clinic staff. She was the most adorable, caring, loyal, and obedient girl in the world.

We already had a huge dog and three cats. A thought about maybe getting a puppy for ourselves emerged only as a joke. The thing is, after a second thought, that the joke didn’t appear to be funny—or joke at all.

After all, what reason could we give for not getting a puppy? Well, maybe that it takes work to care for and train a puppy, it is hard, and it would change our comfortable life as it was. Otherwise, our kids were out of toddler age, we had managed to juggle our schedules to accommodate everything, and we only had one dog.

To be clear, there wasn’t a single REAL reason why not. However, it was a constant swing between maybe, maybe not, yes for sure, no-way, and maybe.

There they were, six little adorable puppies for adoption. The offer definitely would not last for long, so we had to make the only right decision. Our friend, a veterinarian and foster parent of OUR baby girl, said she would be travelling near us in a week, so we had until then to make a final decision.

But it wasn’t really a decision, because all that week, our only thought was how hard it was to wait. But we waited, and finally that happy day came.

Our baby girl, which we named Merida, arrived late at night when our kids were already sound asleep in their beds. Oh, the joy when they woke up!

Photo of Merida of Alexa

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