The New Addition to the Family

Last Friday, I had a moment of weakness. I was watching the local ABC television station as I was getting ready for another hard day of work. Every Friday the morning show has a "Furry Pets" segment in which a lady from the local Humane Society comes on with a homeless animal that needs adoption. On this day, she had a beautiful puppy that was half Akita and half Siberian Husky. Both of these breeds are my favorites. The dog happened to be a female, but apparently she had a brother as well. I jokingly told LeAnn that I was going to get the puppy. As the day went on, I thought more and more about the puppy.

Of course it was a Friday and I had a short day. And you guessed it, I made a trip out to the Humane Society and came home with a puppy. I didn't get the female that was on TV, but I instead adopted her brother. He is a big guy, and he is a lot of fun. We wanted to give a cool name. I looked at several Siberian words, but couldn't pronounce any of them. So instead, we looked at Japanese names. We settled on Nikko. Nikko is a city in Japan, plus it kind of sounds short for Nicholas which is Russian. It seems to fit, he didn't seem to mind it.

Sam, our two year old Beagle mix, really likes his new "brother". I was a little worried about how Sam would react. But after only a couple minutes of hesitation, they decided it would work. Sam, of course, has made it clear that he is the dominant male of the "pack". And Nikko seems okay with this. But then again, when Nikko reaches 100 lbs., that may change.

We took Nikko back to the Humane Society this afternoon for his surgery. We can pick him up tomorrow afternoon. He didn't seem too concerned about being left, but we can't wait to get him back. We now have two dogs, two cats, and three fish. The cats and dogs have all come from the Humane Society. They have all been great animals and brought a lot to our family.