Bad decisions

Cooper with my sister during his first week with us

This blog will be a chronicle of my first year with my mutt Cooper. He is the first dog that I have the honor of raising without the help of my parents. So as you can imagine, as a 23 year old in medical school with 2 cats already, we had and continue to have a whole lot of adventures.
So how did all of this happen?

About 3.5 months ago I got the worst idea of my life and adopted a 10 week old puppy while in medical school. He was just another addition to my zoo which already consisted of 2 cats. As a busy medical student, I knew that this was a bad idea, but sometimes things just happen.
So anyway, during the summer my boyfriend and I were visiting his mother's beautiful farm in West Chester, PA. During that particular visit there were 6 dogs around; of those belonging to the farm, there were 2 miniature Australian shepards, 1 black lab and 1 golden retriever; in addition Dylan's aunt brought her shiba inu; as for the last dog, I have no idea what she was but nevertheless she was adorable. Anyway, where I'm going with this is that this visit made me want a dog so bad. My childhood dog died when I was a senior in high school and my parents weren't ready for another dog yet (despite it being 6 years since he passed). I had never been able to fill the gap that Henry's death left behind and since I had just had a relaxing summer off, I felt like I could handle a dog. So anyway, I knew that Dylan (with whom I lived with) was in a state of doggy weakness after this visit to "the farm" as we called it.
When we got home to our little house in Philadelphia I told Dylan how much I missed having a dog and that maybe we could "just look" at some to get an idea for what we liked. He of course told me it was a bad idea, but continued to help me look around at local rescues online. I feared for the life of my cats so I thought I should probably get a puppy that could be raised with them.
One early afternoon weekend while I was doing puppy research Dylan pulled up petfinder and showed me 6 hound mix puppies in a no-kill shelter in No Lib (to northern liberties for those of you who don't know the lingo). My heart melted. I needed to see these puppies. So we jumped in our car, and drove on over to the rescue.
As we got into the rescue, I wanted to give make sure that I made no rash decisions, and told the people that we were just looking but we weren't ready to adopt (I'd soon eat those words). I did not want to go straight for the puppies so I asked to see many different dogs from shelties, to pitbulls, and from old to young. I liked some of the dogs but Dylan wasn't a fan. He soon asked one of the volunteers about the hound puppies. She led us to the back which was filled with dogs that all looked desperate for a home. I remember tearing up and wishing that I could take them all home. As we walked through the rescue I asked the volunteer questions like "How big are these puppies expected to get" (the answer of 50-100lbs was really vague and left Dylan uneasy since we live in center city Philadelphia), and "What shots do they have?", etc. But all of these things were forgotten as we got to the hounds. There were 3 puppies in one pen. I would find out that these were the girls. All of them were a solid tan color with little touches of white around their face. Next to this pen were 3 males. One of the males had the same coloring as the girls (this puppy would soon go to our next door neighbor). Another male had the same tan color on most of his body, but his face and legs were white with spots. The final puppy was a little smaller then the rest and had a brown body with the same spotty white legs and head as his other brother. The one defining feature was a big spot on top of his head.
I knew I would never be able to pick between the dogs, but I decided I liked the ones with the white limbs and spots. After this, I could not decide between the two (although I was leaning towards the larger tan one), so I made Dylan pick. He liked the spot-head one go figure. But I'd take what I could get, and with that, we asked the volunteer if we could play with this puppy. She said of course and she put us in a room with him. We were told we were not allowed to put him down because he didn't have all of his vaccines. I felt that this made it hard to see how he really was, but I figured I don't want him getting sick, so I listened to my instructions. At the time, this puppy's name was Hamlet. He seemed scared, but he was adorable. I was a little iffy on him because he wasn't nearly as high energy as my dog growing up (or so I thought), but I figured he was just 10 weeks old and he was sitting on the lap of a human he didn't know. And then it happened. The scared little puppy got stood up on my lap and gave me a tongue facial. He continued at this and even nibbled on my ear. I wanted him. Scratch that, I needed him.
After telling Dylan this, he gave me the whole spiel about if I get him, he would be my puppy, and that I had to pay for him and take care of him. I brushed him off saying I know, I know. With my acceptance of his conditions, I called my mom (the usual baby-sitter of my cats), avoided my dad (the voice of reason), and called Dylan's mom (the owner of our house). Everyone was on bored. All I had to do was fill out an application, and be approved, and I'd have my first puppy.
I went home that night beaming. I googled "names for hound dogs". Tons of names came up like Elvis (Aint nothing but a hound dog) and Gunner, but they just didn't seem right. And then, I remembered one of those childhood classics, "The Fox and the Hound". "What was that dog's name? Cooper was it? Oh yeh, I love that name! Hey Dylan, what do you think of Cooper?" And with that we had his name. I would also like to add that it took me about another month to realize that the dog in the movie's name was actually Copper, but oh well, close enough.
I could barely sleep that night, and the next day in school, I told everyone that I was getting a puppy. I just couldn't wait. So you can imagine I was crushed that night when Dylan came home from work and told me he changed his mind and we weren't ready for a puppy. I instantly burst into tears squeaking out unintelligible protests such as "but you promised" and "but I already love him". Apparently, I was pathetic enough and Dylan recanted his words and told me I could have the dog, but again, he was mine and I had to take care of him, blah blah blah.
Needless to say, the next day when the rescue called me to say we had been approved for adoption, and I told them we would be over later that night to get him! I texted Dylan and told him to get home early so we could get the dog before the place closed for the evening.
So about 5 that night we jumped in the car and headed north. Before I had even bought any puppy supplies in the store associated with the rescue, they put Cooper in my arms. At this point he was about 13lbs. Now this may not seem very heavy buy it took us about an hour to get out of the place, and I wasn't allowed to put him down since he wasn't fully vaccinated. So after some time of Cooper sliding down my legs, and a couple hundred of dollars later, we were taking our new puppy home!
He was absolutely silent the whole ride home, all of 5 minutes that is (we did not know it at the time, but that was actually a foreshadowing of Cooper's terrible car sickness that has resulted in him being on anti-nausea meds and having to lay on a tarp on any road trip due to excessive salivating).
When we got him home, we took him right out back so he knew where to go the bathroom. And then we saw the real Cooper. The second he touched the ground he was off running. Maybe he wasn't the calm puppy he seemed to be just 2 days prior.
At this time, he was the size of our cats, Blue (5 years old) and Tangerine (1.5 years old). They seemed a little weary of him, but he had no fear of them(although Blue would instill this in him very soon with a couple of swats to the face). Nevertheless, they accepted him without too much commotion, and all was well.
I was in love with the newest addition to our family. I love dogs probably more than is socially acceptable, and I knew that I had just found my new best friend :)

Cooper in his new crate with Tangerine, and Blue checking him out from a safe distance