Say Hello to Oakley!

Hello everyone! I hope that you all had a wonderful Holiday! I have spent lots of my time this past week with my family and our new little family member... Oakley!

For months, Brent and I have been searching for a dog to adopt, but nothing seemed to follow through! We decided to stop looking for a while, and have faith that when the time was right, things would fall into place. Little did we know, that is exactly what would happen!

We woke up on a Saturday morning and decided it would be fun to check out the local dog shelter, just to get an idea of what kind of animals were there. We had no plans to adopt at this point, because we realized it was not our time. But the second Brent laid eyes on a little, scruffy, brown dog, we had to have him.

Oakley is three years old and is a cocker spaniel mix. We adopted him on Saturday, and brought him home after his surgery (neutering) on Monday. After taking things easy for the first week for our little guy's recovery, we learned how unbelievably sweet, trusting, and well behaved he was! As if things couldn't get any better, he was already house trained!!

He had his first vet appointment this week and we learned that our little guy is extremely underweight. To give you a little idea, he is 11 pounds, and needs to be at least 24! Luckily, that was his only issue, and although it will take time, it can easily be fixed.

When it comes to his personality, he is the sweetest and funniest dog you could meet! He loves playing with his toys, going on walks, and cuddling with mom and dad. He enjoys car rides, and LOVED going to the desert on Christmas with our family! He has a cute curled tail like a pug and THE funniest and longest legs I think I have ever seen a smaller dog have! My dad and husband insist that he looks like an AT-AT from Star Wars.

There is one thing that I wanted to share in this post and it is this.

When Brent and I went to the shelter, I teared up probably 20 times. The dogs there are so sad, mistreated, and abandoned. It is so hard to watch. I realized that Brent and I spent so much time looking at puppies from breeders and never once thought about rescuing. But my experience of adopting an older dog from the shelter is much more rewarding than I expected. This little guy waited three years to find a family who would keep him forever, and there are hundreds more like him waiting for their turn to be loved and given a family to take care of them.

I am so blessed to have the life I do, and be blessed with the people, and little fur balls like Oakley in my life. I hope that if you are thinking about getting yourself a pet, that you really look into rescuing one from the shelter. Go there without expectations and go in there with an open heart. Because if you do, you WILL find the right animal for you!

We are so happy to have this little fella in our lives and we look forward for the memories to come! Adopting this little boy of ours has been the perfect ending to our year and we look forward to what next year will bring!