Living with a 2-year old

Jason and I have a two-year old. No, it's not a two-year old human child - it's a two-year old dog. When we first got Pedro, Jason assured me that the dog would only grow to be about 35 lbs. Both his parents were about that size. His mother was a blue-tick hound dog and we believe his father was a border collie. Not to sure - he was an abandoned puppy that adopted Jason's family.

I wanted a dog, and 35 lbs. seemed reasonable. I also wanted a cooky name for my dog. I wanted a fun name, but something I would never name my actual child. Isn't it funny how you can get away with naming pets something weird?

Right after we got married (which was May of 2007), Jason told me that his dad's dogs had some puppies. About the time they were weaned, we went and checked them out. There were tons of puppies, mostly black and chocolate brown. But, there was this one puppy that was completely white. Except for one ear. He had one black ear. So adorable. And so different from his brothers and sisters.

So, we decided that this was our puppy and we would name him Pedro (after the character in Napoleon Dynamite). Pedro was very timid at first. He wasn't sure if he liked the idea of these two new people.  The first night he was so exhausted that he fell asleep in Jason's arms. So he slept outside. But, he woke us up in the morning with his whimpering.

After a bath, we let Pedro inside. He didn't want to walk anywhere. He was very unsure walking on the tile, and would often stay exactly where we put him. I set a towel down in the kitchen and he stayed there the entire time. I remember that my sister, Amelia, was amazed that Pedro wasn't terrorizing the house.

That would soon change. Pedro became a very hyper dog. He's calmed down now, but there were some tough times. And some broken items. And a completely chewed up deck that will have to be replaced. Fortunately, potty training was easy for him and we had very few accidents in the house. Pedro still gets super excited when guests come over, but he's not a terror.

Oh, and did I mention that he is now 72 lbs? Yes, you might remember that is a much larger weight than we anticipated. He's not fat - in fact, he's very healthy. Just much bigger than his parents or siblings. We should have noticed that he was the largest of his pack. Oh well.

Here's a few comparisons of him from his first days with us to now.

This is how we used to bathe Pedro. In fact, I believe that this picture (although cruddy) was from the first night we got Pedro.

And, this is how we bathe Pedro now:

Um, do you notice a size difference? Unbelievable.

Here's Pedro's first pictures with each of us:

And more recent photos with Pedro:

I missed posting about Pedro on his birthday (which was sometime around our wedding date), so I thought I'd post a belated birthday post. Happy birthday, Pedro!