And New Fur-Baby Makes Us a Family of Five!!

Today we officially became a family of five!

Please join us in joyfully welcoming our newest fur-baby.

Gershwin

Official AKC name: Gershwin Shall We Dance

Born: July 20, 2012

Gotcha Day: October 17, 2012

As you can see all of the fur kids were enthusiastic about the new arrangement.

As you can guess, we wanted another Jewish name . We also love music and what George and Ira Gershwin did for American music. We chose Shall We Dance based on both the lyrics and my love of dance.

Drop that long face. Come on. Have your fling.

Why keep nursing the blues?

If you want this old world on a string,

Put on your dancing shoes. Stop wasting time.

Put on your dancing shoes. Watch your spirits climb.

Shall we dance, or keep on moping?

Shall we dance and walk on air?

Shall we give in to despair?

Or shall we dance with never a care?

Life is short. We're growing older.

Don't you be an also ran. 

You've got to dance, little lady. Dance, little man.

Dance whenever you can.

Tovah spent the first few hours completely nonplussed by Gershwin's arrival. She even napped with me in the bedroom while Asher and Gershwin stayed in the kitchen area with Mom. We expected Tovah to be the one ecstatic about the arrival, but it was Asher who was most interested in the new baby. After dinner, though, Tovah and Gershwin played and played and played. 

It was a gorgeous day for us to spend plenty of time outside with the three dogs getting to know each other. Asher initiated the most play with Gershwin and seemed very excited about his new baby brother. He also is busy alerting us when Gershwin cries or seems to need something. This Asher of ours is a hard worker! (The other night, Tovah was up sick and he slept next to her crate supervising the entire night.) We could not be more amazed by Asher's love and protectiveness of his baby siblings (and of us). We are also overjoyed to see him playing happily again.

I am completely overwhelmed with joy. We have a house full of so much love and joy!

You can see from this photo how similar Tovah and Gershwin are in terms of their markings.

Gershwin is a true lap dog. Any time he sees or thinks a lap might be available he is ready to snuggle! And here Mom is getting lots and lots of kisses. I've turned her into a crazy dog person! :) As you can see poor little Gershwin's butt is shaved and it will take a while for this to grow out. (This is the traditional Lowchen cut, but we'll be keeping him in a puppy cut.)

He still really needs a middle name or first initials. I'm taking suggestions, especially for Jewish and Hebrew names. Some suggestions so far:

 Ron (pronounced Rone) or a variation such as Ronel, Ronen, Roni, or Ronli -- Song or joy, joyous song

Shir or Shira -- Song, Sing, Music

Simcha -- Joy

Zamir -- Song

Lirit -- We sing

Liron -- A song

Lev -- Heart

Tevye -- good, from Fiddler on the Roof

Leonard -- for Bernstein

Aron -- teaching, singing, shining, or mouton

Asa -- Healer

Gil, Gill, Gili, Gilli -- joy, my joy

Leor -- I have light

Ziv, Zivi -- To shine

Zusya -- Yiddish, Sweet

Our other possibility is to play off of the Gershwin initials and simply name him G.I. Gershwin, in honor of both George and Ira. 

Please check out all of the suggestions I've received on FB and chime in! :)

Thank you to all of you who have supported us on this journey. We have decided to seize the joy whenever we can, and having dogs is an incredible source of joy.

My heart is so very full.

Blessings,

Emily, Renee, Asher Noam, Tovah Rose and Gershwin

It's Official: Another Puppy!

The litter mates. Ours is the one in the middle, with very similar markings to Tovah's.

It's official. As of today we officially got the news that we will be adopting another puppy, who is about 10 weeks younger than Tovah and from the same breeder. Basically, we've lost our minds and gone crazy! :)

Mom will be picking up our new boy on Wednesday.

It's amazing to me that such different looking puppies can all be from the same litter!

We really hadn't been considering getting a second puppy, but our breeder happened to have her two yearly litters close together. One puppy demonstrated himself as a 'super snuggler' and Dayle wanted him to go to a home without children where he would get LOTS of attention. We kept our eye on the little guy and when she hadn't found the perfect home for him we started to seriously consider bringing another dog into the fold now.

Because we hadn't planned on brining another puppy into our home so soon, I don't have too many photos of our new little guy, but here is one of them.

Tovah is incredibly attached to Asher, so much so that while he spent two days at Dad and Abbie's she refused to eat or play and slept the whole time! We know that as Asher ages, it will become increasingly difficult to bring another dog into our home. Small breeds tend to do well in pairs, so this way Tovah and her brother can grow up together and have that companionship. Tovah also can get a little bored despite our efforts to entertain her, and we think she'd prefer a companion of the puppy kind. We started to feel that we already knew we wanted another Lowchen at some point, and this seemed to be as good a time as ever to do so.

HIs momma, Ajjie, in the traditional Lowchen cut. We won't be keeping our dogs this way! They'll be kept in a puppy cut and no shaved buttitude! :)

The decision was certainly not an easy one. We could not have asked to be more blessed with how things have worked out with Tovah and Asher. And how wonderful Tovah is as a puppy and companion. 

Are we pushing our luck? Is three dogs too many to keep up with? What if I have a crash? What if Mom has another health issue and we have three dogs to take care of?  Could I keep up with the needs of the three dogs--most particularly grooming and training the puppies? If something happens that Mom or I have health issues will people say: you got yourself into this mess!?

Beautiful Mama.

After an incredible amount of processing and discussion (remember I'm a verbal out loud processor which can make my mom slightly crazy! :)), we decided to take the risk. We also had very serious discussions with the breeder.

In the end, we cannot predict what our futures will bring health-wise. We have no idea how long Asher will be with us or how he would adapt to a puppy as his health deteriorates. All we could decide was that now, right now, things are stable and we could bring a third puppy into the fold now. We could envision all of us--me, Mom, Tovah Rose and Asher--doing well with the addition of a puppy now.

Our new little guy.

Starting on Wednesday we'll have our own little pack! :) Dayle says Lowchen are like potato chips: you can't just have one. I think she is right.

:)

We hope you will support us in our decision to bring this joyful puppy into our home. We ultimately decided that we have a lot of love to give and we really, really enjoy having dogs, especially me. 

Please come and visit our new little guy! We want him to be as well socialized as our Tovah Rose Twinkle Toes. (Just shoot me a text or an email to make sure it is a good time!).

Can't wait to bring this sweet face into our home!

Our little guy has a name, but we'll wait to reveal it until he's home safe with us.

Blessings,

Emily

Freshly Groomed

Mom helped me get some great photos of the fur kids yesterday. Twinkle Toes had just been bathed and brushed, and Asher had been to the groomer on Monday, so both are looking particularly handsome in the photos. :)

Tovah Rose is going to be 5 months on the 5th! She is growing like a weed and weighs 7 lbs now!

Mom was working very hard trying to get the two of them to pose at the same time. Nice of them to stick their tongues out at the same time?!

Just Chillin' together.

Blessings,

Emily