This is Pete.
I knew when I got married that I would be getting a dog eventually. I didn't grow up with a dog and I thought I didn't like them. For some reason, despite that, I married a man who grew up in, basically, a zoo and asked me, almost on a daily basis, when we would be getting a dog. In our first year of marriage we were very blessed, in that we had the opportunity to house sit for some people while they took a job in another state (it should be illegal how cheap we got to stay in that house for an entire year) While we lived there, I thought 'Yes, we have enough room. Mike can get his dog.' I don't think the sentence was completely out of my mouth before he was already looking online. This is probably how it went:
Me: Mike, we have a yard so we can ge--
(Mike is running down the hall to the office, getting on his computer)
Me: --t a dog now. I think... (at this point in my sentence, he had already emailed me 10 different dogs' pictures and information)
We got Pete from a fantastic organization called Austin Dog (you probably shouldn't click on that link unless you're prepared to see cute dogs and take all of them home...). His previous owner's house had been foreclosed on and they just left him in the backyard. The new people who moved in fed him and took care of him but didn't want to keep him, so they turned him over to Austin Dog (The part that makes me want to kick a tree, is that the neighbors were talking about just shooting him!) Anyways, Mike found him on their website, and we met him and his foster mom. She let us take him for a walk and it was pretty much love at first sight. He competely ignored us the whole time and walked around all cocky like 'I don't know who you people are but I'm cute and I have chosen to be in charge of this walk, now take me over there!' That's pretty much how it went down. A few weeks later, we got him, and I became a dog person. (It's been one of the better changes I've made with myself)
Pete has a tendancy to think that he is not only a puppy, but also a lap dog. He is neither of these things. He is 4 years old and a good 40 pounds. These facts do not stop him from continuing to think that he is a lap dog puppy.
When we go on walks, he barks and growls at UPS trucks and school buses because I need to be protected from them and their evil purposes. Also, he very kindly informs us when people walk by/ride bikes past/point missiles at our apartment. Fortunately (sarcasm noted?), we live right by the road and a sidewalk where people frequently go past, so it is a daily occurence in which he barks their existence to us.
Another trait of his that cracks us up to no end, is the fact that deep down under the barking and tough guy act, Pete is just a big baby. If we throw a toy, and it bounces off something unfamiliar or goes into a room that he is wary of, he will walk up to it slowly, assess the situation, stretch out his paw and swipe at it until it moves closer to him, then stretch his neck as far as he can to grab it with his teeth.
This is the closest example of it that I could find:
Note the stretching of his neck. He LOVES playing at the lake/river/anything that gets him completely wet, but he's so hesitant of getting toys out of them.
One of my favorite new discoveries of Pete, is that he has a nemesis. I don't know what he calls it, but we call it the vacuum. He likes to play chicken with it. When I pull it out of the closet, his tail starts to twitch a little with excitement, but as soon as I turn it on, he flees in holy terror. After a couple of minutes, he'll get brave and sit right in the path of where I'm vacuuming, but then run away before it's too late! (tail wagging, because at this point it's all good fun) If I'm still vacuuming, he will go get a toy. Usually his round squeeky one. I don't know why. Maybe the vacuum told Pete that it likes that one in particular. Anyways, he'll hold it in his mouth and his tail will be straight up in the air, all jaunty like, and he'll look at the vacuum as if to say 'Look at you. You don't have any toys. You're a vacuum.' And then he runs away.
While he is not a human baby, he is MY baby (I call him my baby baby - he's just so cute I have to say it twice! He will always be my baby baby and none of the babies that I give birth to will be referred to as this, because Pete is the only one).
What I want more than anything right now is to be pregnant, but until then, I think this silly goose will suffice.