Introducing the one and only

Denali.

Yup, that's the name we've decided on for our baby boy who's coming home tomorrow. It's a national forest in Alaska where the highest mountain, Mt. McKinley, is located. It also means "the great one."

I really wanted an Inuit name. Since I'm Alaskan Native I thought it would be neat. My choice was "nanuk" meaning loveable, cute, or even white bear. Doc Handsome wasn't too fond of it though. We tossed around Oakley, Kingston, Kodiak, and even Wilson if you can believe it. We had a lot of suggestions so thank you all. My second favorite choice was Franklin Deleanor Rosevelt. I wanted to call him FDR. I thought it would be a strong name. I really like double names for animals. But I'm really happy with Denali too.

We were supposed to be adopting a German Shepard puppy mix on the 18th of this month. I wrote about it a bit ago. This lady took in a stray German Shepard and she ended up giving birth to 11 puppies a couple weeks later. Needing to find homes immediately, she tried to find them before they were 8 weeks old. So we had our name put on the list for one and once they turned 8 weeks, one would come home with us. This was about a month ago. Eventually after so much talking we decided we should adopt straight from a shelter or rescue and even forgo the puppy idea in general. Everybody wants a puppy and we knew they'd find good homes unlike so many of the animals in shelters. So our hunt began.

We searched two shelters close to us and couldn't find anything. We knew there would just be the right pet. It would just feel right when we found the one. We didn't want a really young puppy for fear of the normal puppy energy with the baby. We were hoping to find a little bit of an older dog who had mellowed out. The shelter by us does home checks on specific breeds they deem "aggressive" (pit bulls, chows, bulldogs, etc.) to make sure homes don't have three things. Other pets, small children, and six foot fencing. Well, we failed all three. Although there were so many animals we loved, after meeting them outside their cage, it just never felt exactly right. I fall in love easily but I'm glad I listened to Doc Handsome because we would've never found Denali. We even looked at a different husky who had a medical record. Turns out she had a broken hip that she managed to live with for a long time but might need to be amputated at some point. It would be the responsibility of the new owner to have it taken care of if so. We called around to a few vets to see how much it would cost and estimates ranged anywhere from $1500 to $10,000. I wanted to take her home so badly. I wanted to save her. But in the end, I knew it wasn't possible. With so many unknowns about the financial aspect, we couldn't risk it for our family's sake.

So yesterday we drove about an hour away planning on visiting two different shelters. The first one we went to had our husky and a great dane that we fell in love with. The great dane wasn't available for a couple more days so we decided to take a look at the husky. We swore that we'd look and even if we loved him, we would take a look at the other shelter before jumping to a decision. Well all that went out the window when we got into the open yard with him. It was the "click" we were looking for. It was an instant connection. He was unlike any other dog we had looked at. Didn't jump on any of us once, didn't run wild. He actually came and sat right next to us and just licked Mini Dh's little toes. Over and over again. The entire time we were with him, we just laid his head on our knees. Mini Dh even gave him a good couple "love pats" as we like to call them. Denali didn't flinch even once. He was good with other dogs and we're hoping he'll be as calm with our cat too. He even sat with a treat when I told him to. And after all that, we just looked at each other and knew we didn't want to look elsewhere. We paid the adoption fees, filled out all the paperwork, said goodbye until Tuesday, and became the proud owners of Denali.

So tomorrow we get to head to the vet which is in the same city about an hour away and pick him up from being neutered. Then on Wednesday he has a vet visit for a well dog check up. I am soooooo excited to bring him home tomorrow. We went out and bought doggie beds for both the dogs tonight. We bought a ton of toys for them to play with too. Denali has a brand spankin' new collar, leash, and harness. Doc Handsome is really looking forward to taking him for long mile runs in the evening. Poor little Toby can't hold up on long runs. So tomorrow all the pets meet. I sure hope it goes okay. I hope Denali likes it here and fits into our lifestyle okay. I have no idea what kind of environment he lived in before although I don't think it was a bad situation. We was so trusting of humans and his owners were kind enough to turn him in when they recieved him as a gift but their apartments wouldn't allow animals. So I think it will go smoothly.