A year ago last Monday, Kimberly and I adopted young Baozi (包子), our German Shepherd mix¹ puppy. “Baozi,” pronounced “Bow-dzuh,” means  “little stuffed bun” in Mandarin.  As you can see below, she certainly was a little dim sum when got her at about 3 months old.  Now, at 1 year & 3 months, “giant stuffed bun” would be more appropriate.  We could have expected that change, but there were a lot of things we didn’t expect…

3 months old
for this & more pics, see my “Year of Baozi” album
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I had expected a month or so of pure chaos and plenty of joy, but that isn’t what happened.

For starters, the total chaos never happened. I thought the first few weeks would be a whole lot of cuteness – but also like a puppy bomb exploded in our house: there would be poop and destruction left, right, and center. It never happened. Sure, there was a total rearrangement of our schedule, but it felt surprisingly manageable. And she really didn’t destroy much.²

Having a puppy was simply awesome as far as I was concerned! SO. MUCH. CUTE. I was sooo happy! SO. FASCINATING. Then, a month or so in, I found Kimberly angry and upset with “everything” & I couldn’t understand why. She explained all that was wrong & I tried to convince her otherwise, but in doing so I realized she was right, actually. My life had become a mess, without me noticing.

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[Ed. Note: A few days ago, Kate Antoniades contacted me because she runs a blog, "From Alone to Home: Stories of Adopted Pets" (www.fromalonetohome.com), which collects pet adoption stories as her way to encourage other people to choose shelter/rescue adoption. She asked me to write up Baozi's adoption story & it turned into a nice little piece on why we decided to get a pup from my point of view! Here it is.]

[Ed. Note: Also check the previous post to listen to her awesome puppy yawns & see pix and video ]

Baozi Snoozes

Pet’s Name: Baozi (包子)

Adopted by: Amandeep & Kimberly

From: SPCA, San Francisco, Calif.

Ever since I was a young boy, I’ve wanted a dog¹. Growing up, my Mom never allowed us to get one because she feared she’d be left to take care of it. In hindsight, I can understand, as my brother and I were plenty of work as it was².

My entire childhood was thus spent longing for a dog & getting all the B-list pets I could get my Mom to sign off on. A menagerie of parakeets, fish, hermit crabs, snakes, lizards, toads and jumping spiders paraded through our home, but none filled the void. (Many of these hapless creatures were captured from the woods near my house.)

As soon as I moved out on my own, I thought about getting a dog, but with adulthood came a dawning realization of how much work that would entail. I knew I wasn’t quite ready. But still the idea persisted. Every friend’s dog that I baby-sat tested my resolve. Every girlfriend I had was measured up as a potential puppy-mamma. Every “sidewalk-adopt-a-pet” event I passed on the street was a crisis.

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Not all posts here at Deeptrouble.com involve issues of magnitude and commentary most insightful.

Some involve…. (drum roll)…

PUPPY YAWNS!

(click here to hear the goodness)

The last one is the best actually

I’ve always wanted a puppy & last weekend Kimberly and I adopted little Baozi* from the SPCA here in San Francisco. She is as adorable as you might imagine. These yawns are compiled from two of the early morning (2:45am and 5:15am to be exact!) “take her out to pee!” runs (iPhone Voice Memo app FTW!)

*It means “stuffed bun” in Mandarin & is pronounced “Bow-dzuh”! She’s a German shepard mix…