Meet our Dog: Izzy Bojangles!

As I had briefly mentioned in my previous “long time no see!” post… we adopted a dog!

Her name is Izzy Bojangles and she is such a little smush!

Getting these questions out of the way:
Why Izzy? That’s the name she was given! We asked her foster mom if she knew any commands and she let us know that Izzy recognizes and comes to her name, so we didn’t want to change it.
So… Bojangles? That one was a surprise, too. We tacked on her middle name for fun. You know how you always call dogs by lots of names? Well, it started with Izzy Bizzy, Izzy Bean, then one day Izzy Bojangles came out of John’s mouth and we knew that was her middle name.

While she is such a loving amazing girly pop… she wasn’t always that way. I’m going to come right out the gate and say: dogs are HARD. There was absolute puppy regret. We originally thought we were lucking out because we were adopting a 1 1/2 year old - so she was housebroken already, but still a little gal! Best of both worlds! We wouldn’t have to potty train, and could go right ahead to just having a dog.

We were so wrong.

Now, this is our (just me and John) first dog. We both grew up with dogs - my family always had rescues/mutts; but as puppies. John’s family always had pure bred Brittany Spaniels; also always from puppies. So, we knew about how difficult puppies were, with the chewing and potty training and stuff, but boy howdy did we not know that adopted dogs provide their own challenge.

Even if the dog you’re adopting didn’t come from a place with a bad past - there’s still going to be an adjustment period. We chatted with Izzy’s foster mom during our pre-screening; and were lucky to find out that pre-her, Izzy didn’t have any sort of tragic past. Izzy was found as a puppy on the side of her road with her mom and littermates. They were all taken in together by her foster mom, who runs a dog sanctuary. Izzy had no known history of abuse, and she was taken care of by the same people who found her until she was put up for adoption.
We thought we had won the lotto. This was going to be so easy! She gets along with other dogs and small children, she hadn’t bounced around, and for the past year or so she’d been well taken care of by a wonderful lady.

Then came adoption day!
The day before my birthday - what a great present! Unfortunately, my birthday is in January, and we’re in the northeast. So, right off the bat plans changed. What was going to be a 30min drive to pick her up turned into 2 hours because her transport was stuck with the weather. And when we picked her up we found she was transported in the back of an 18 wheeler that was full of kennels. The dogs looked well cared for, but she had been riding up from texas for three days - and Izzy was absolutely terrified. We got her in our car and slowly drove her back to our house. She slept with her head in my lap (I cried the whole way because she was just so preious and we had a dog!!). When we got home, she was very hesitant to leave the car. But we coaxed her out, and she didn’t reject the crate when we were going to sleep. What she did reject, was us going upstairs to our room (the crate was downstairs) and she immediately yelped - so we slept in the guest bedroom.

I’m not going to day-by-day it - but the first three days were brutal. John and I cried a lot. She was just so terrified, she was hardly eating. But our adoption agency assured us this was normal and we’d just have to be patient and gentle with her.

The first three weeks were really hard. We constantly wondered if we had made a mistake. Would she ever like us? Why is she barking at only John? What are we doing wrong? Does she even like toys? How long until we can leave her in the crate downstairs and we can actually sleep together in our bed through the night? Would we ever be able to leave her alone? Can our lives go back to normal and be with-a-dog instead of revolving-around-a-dog? I cried a lot. I missed John. Izzy had attached to me and still seemed so wary of everything. I couldn’t even go to the bathroom by myself. I was so frustrated with having a shadow 24/7 but didn’t want to complain because John just wanted our dog to like him as much as she seemed to like me. It was a lot. It felt like those three weeks lasted an eternity. After the first week, we wondered how on earth we were going to make it to week three. After week three we wondered how the hell we were going to make it to three months.

And here we are now- over three months with our Izzy girl, and we love her so much. She’s started playing with toys; she’s doing better and better with us every day, and she’s starting to feel like ‘our dog’.
I remember being so frustated before this point (especially in the first month) that she didn’t feel like our dog - because everything on social media is all “who saved who”, and “I took her home from the shelter today and she did this when we got home!” showing a dog who immediately snuggles up and plays. But I want to tell you - it is not like that for the majority of people adopting dogs. There’s a reason adoption brochures and articles for 3-3-3 are everywhere.

And if you’re wondering what on earth 3-3-3 means, here’s one of the resources we were given:

Of course, every dog is different (this is just the average experience). There are instances where your adopted dog gets comfortable immediately - and there are times when it might not feel home for a year.

But I’m going to tell it how it is for us. Adopting Izzy was hard. The beginning of this year was long and a lot of the times really not fun. But we’re so happy to have our Isabelle Bojangles. And if you’re thinking of getting a dog or just recently got one and are in the super-not-honeymoon stage right now, I’m letting you know it’s worth it. Be patient. It’s not going to be like this forever (even though it may feel like it right now). It’s okay to cry and to ask for help and to only take the advice you want to and to tell other people to stop giving unsolicited advice and to cry some more. But in a little while you’re going to have an amazing family member. And if you’re lucky like us - she’s going to be the cutest little couch potato who loves w-a-l-k-s and her pupsicle toy and gets the zoomies every morning at 10.

xx, Sarah