Ruby Picked Me

I don't know why the name Ruby stuck with me. It came to me when we were discussing the baby bully and it just stuck. My car is named Pearl. Putting Ruby in Pearl (with the top down and her giant head sticking out the top) makes me chuckle. So unless she was just NOT a Ruby, I had the name before I had the dog.

Monday, December 28, 2009. We made the trek to a small town south of here to select my puppy from a litter of eight. I didn't want to take the kids and be faced with 'oooh, look how cute THIS one is, and THIS one, and THIS ONE!' I also wanted to be able to walk away if the home wasn't clean, or the Mom or Dad of the litter had bad temperaments. So the husband and I went alone.

Any thoughts about issues with the home or dogs were quickly washed away. The male and female met us at the door with big, friendly, curious faces. They didn't bark, they didn't jump up. The family had two small boys that were clearly comfortable with these two enormous dogs in the mix. I was instantly pleased and couldn't wait to see the puppies.

How in the world do you pick? They were all adorable. I wanted a female, which instantly eliminated a few. And I knew I didn't want an all black one because they look too much like a black lab, only larger. So I pulled out 4 of the five fawn puppies and sat on the floor with them. One was instantly timid, backing away from me when I reached for her. I apologized to her as I handed her back, but know that timid dogs sometimes turn into aggressive dogs. An aggressive 120+ lb dog is not what I had in mind.

Another of the four puppies was adorable, spunky, a total pain in the ass. Biting, nipping, grabbing, untying shoes. The kind of precocious puppy that's only adorable if it is someone else's puppy. Again, I apologized, but turned her over to the owner and assured the little furball that SOMEONE would appreciate her personality.

While dealing with that puppy, I hadn't even noticed that one of the other two had crawled into my lap and curled up quite comfortably. I looked her over, got to know her for about 30 minutes, and declared that I had found my dog.

She picked me.

The next two weeks waiting for Ruby to come home would seem to drag on forever.