Pulled the trigger

Well, there she is, in all her glory. We selected her from a gang of six a little over a month ago. The pickins weren't easy. Initially, Jack & Donna had their hearts set on the brown one while Joe and I wanted the black one. Then, because Jack is my little minion and Joe just likes to be difficult they flipped. Eventually we settled on this little gal. We named her "Cabela" after well, you know, CABELA'S. I figure a sizeable portion of my disposable income already goes to them, might as well honor them with something more permanent. We picked her up from the breeder in Lancaster on Sunday evening. For the first 10 minutes of the 45 minute ride home she squealed and whined and barked and generally made me remember why I was so hesitant to get a puppy. She settled down pretty quickly, though. Until 11:00 or so when we put her into her crate for the night and she fired up the whine machine again. She finally dozed off but was bright-eyed & bushy-tailed at 4:00 the next morning. I considered eating the sizeable price I paid for her and submitting her as a candidate for animal research. But my kids would have been mighty disappointed so I kicked Donna out of the bed so she could tend to her, pulled the pillow over my head, and tried to go back to sleep. When I finally got out of bed I had a heart to heart with the mutt and let her know that her behavior had already put her on the edge of a crumbling cliff. She apparently took me seriously because her behavior has improved considerably. There's been a couple piddle on the carpet incidents (mostly due to our failure to put her outside when she needs to go) and some minor nighttime squealing, but I'm loving this dog more and more. Look at this little cutey, how can you not love a face like that?