Caitey could stay, thanks to Annie!

"That is IT!", my husband announced after he felt he had had it with Caitey's pee and poo in the house. He gathered a family meeting only about a week Caitey was here and basically told us that dog had to go.

The girls cried instantly upon hearing the news. We tried our best to argue with daddy, but we did not know how to change the situation around either.

I barely slept that night feeling sad about the upcoming departure of Caitey. The next morning, I got up early and sat on the floor next to Caitey. I gently touched her hair while she was still sound asleep. I think I shed enough tears to flood Lake Carnegie that morning.

The girls woke up early as well and Caitlin had puffy eyes obviously from too much crying before she went to sleep.

At about 10am, I had no choice but to call two puppy stores to see if they were willing to take Caitey for free, hoping that she could find a nice family after us. Both stores said that they would only take puppies from breeders. I tried Puppy Barn where we got Caitey from a week ago, luckily I was told Big Ralph the manager was out till the afternoon.

That bought me a few extra hours to try one more time to keep Caitey with us. I had no choice but to beg a great friend of mine Annie for help.

Annie became a friend of our family 6 years ago when we lived in Chicago. She is an incredible warm-hearted, kind, radiant and funny Scottish/Irish redhead who can always crack me up and make me feel better whenever I need her. She does not have any kid of her own, but she and her Italian husband Sal poured all their parental love into their two dogs. She sure knows a lot more about puppies than I do, so I asked her to call my husband, give him some suggestions and encouragements hoping that could give us a few extra days.

Then I rushed out to PetsMart and got two minivan loads of goodies including a large metal crate for a golden inside the house, a table customized for that crate, a portable crate for Caitey to travel with us, and a fenced play bin for Caitey to stay outside on the patio.

This time I was determined to start things anew. Obviously we had been doing it wrong by not using a crate and that was the root of the problem. I also had decided that I was going to work Caitey regularly during the day to make her tired thru exercises and walking. As they say, a tired dog is a good dog. Then I would lock her up -- this way she could rest and we could all get on with our day without having to worry about her flooding the house or chewing up the furniture, especially my brand new 7' Steinway!

I think my pray had been heard and suddenly things looked up dramatically from that day.

First, Annie's conversation with my husband worked like a charm, I don't know exactly what she said but that convinced him to set up the crate and table for Caitey to give her another chance. It also just happened that the next day Caitey started to use her cute little nose to knock on the Chinese gong that I hanged up at the patio door whenever she needed to go. Life became much easier after she was potty trained, finally.

The girls and I were SO relieved that the little crisis was over and Caitey got to stay us. I can't imagine what our life would be if we let go of her that day.

Thank you dear Annie, and all my other friends who had given us precious tips to help raise Caitey -- if only you could know how grateful we are.

Warm hugs from me and slobbery kiss from Caitey.