19

Happy 6 month birthday Hilla <3

This'll be a picture-heavy update, just so you know. 

Today, is the 6 month birthday of my puppy, Arttulan Leidi Latte "Hilla". I never really did a introduction on her, so I might as well, considering she's a huge part of my life at the moment, and hopefully will never cease to be. I know celebrating such occasions as this is a little absurd, but the life of a dog is so fleeting, I can't help myself. 

My previous dog, Lecibsin Pebble "Milli", was a 8 year old bernese mountaindog. She was one of the most dearest things to me, and continues to be so. Sadly, the said breed is a tad sickly, so she perished due to lymphoma seven months ago. It was tragic, I had gone through a lot of things in that span of time, most of them negative, and her death felt like the last nail to my coffin. I was devastated, even though we made the hard decision to put her down and while doing so, let her out of her misery. Luckily, she wasn't in such a horrible shape just yet, she could still act relatively normal, as in wag her tail and greet the visitors. But the choice had to be made, even though we didn't have her cancer tests back, and weren't sure did she even have lymphoma.. But seeing her suffer, sleeping through days and having trouble breathing in the end, it was too much for me, my family, and the dog as well. Looking back, I'm glad I made the decision, since she's in a better place now ( really anti-climatic, I know ). 

Shortly after her euthanasia, I already knew I couldn't go on without a dog in my life. There has always been a dog in my family ever since I was born, and there would damn well be a dog as long as I lived. My parents took some convincing to do, but later they agreed to get me a dog, that I would take care of alone. We also knew, we didn't want another bernese in the family, considering we had had three already, and they all lived short lives ( first one lived to 5, second to 3 and third to 8 ). We were browsing through possible candidate breeds, knowing we wanted a friendly, medium sized dog, that had enough energy to do long walks with, as well as maybe some other activities. We were at a stop, until I suggested getting a Siberian samoyed. The breed info read, that samoyeds were super friendly by description, energetic, loving, cuddly, hardly ever aggressive.. We thought we had hit the jackpot. Searching for breeders was the tougher part of the search.

I went through at least 18 breeders in two days, leaving them e-mails and asking, if they had puppies planned for the 2013 winter. Many of them answered simply, no. Then, a few of them pointed me into the direction of a specific breeder, that lived just a hours drive away from our house, had outstanding dogs and was borderline amazing all together. My mother made the call to her, and got to know that there were two litters of puppies being born a few weeks apart from each other, in August. We specifically wanted a female dog, since dad had terms, and didn't want a male in the house. We awaited for the first litter to be born, and when it did, the breeder gave us a call telling that there were only a few females born, and they were already taken. I was devastated, and lost all hope. My mom kept telling me that if the next litter would have two or more females, we would get one for certain. When the fateful day came, I was sitting on my computer, immersed in the WoW universe. Mom casually came talking to me about all her usual nonsense, until she just said, that "Oh and btw, the breeder called. She said that there was three girls born in the litter last night. We could have one.. If you're still interested." And yeah, I sure was. I vaguely remember crying for a few hours and then hyping the rest of the day.

During the time between her birth and the day we took her home, days seemed to go by slower. I used most of my money on things for her, like a collar, brushes, shampoo, toys, a doggy bed.. I was so anxious of her arrival, that I wished I could've slept through the days. Then the day came, and we went to the breeders to collect our little princess. We didn't pick her ourselves, the breeder had decided for us. She wanted to observe the girls, and determine which one of them was the perfect match with us. When we came inside her house, she had all the three girls in a separate room from all of the other dogs and puppies she had currently. We sat down on the floor, and each of us got a puppy in our laps. The girl, that would leave with us, ended up in my dads arms ( the one of us that wanted the dog the least ). Then we did the necessary paperwork, and off we went!

Us on her first car ride to her new home.

After that, the months have gone by flying. It only feels like yesterday I was on her first car ride to home, but here she is, almost three times as big as she was that day, and at least a hundred times more confident. It has been a emotional roller coaster. We have had bad days, good days, okay days, horrible days, amazing days.. Anything and everything between heaven and earth. But from the first day I got her in my arms, and I took her to our home, I have loved her immensely, and never stopped. Even on her cranky, bad days she makes my heart flutter in joy of having her with me. I feel like a single mom, with a ADHD albino midget kid. But a brilliant, brilliant ADHD albino midget kid.

To Hilla,
 I hope you'll outlive your predecessors, because the joy you've brought to me is unfathomable. I want to have as many years with you as possible, and I promise never ever to leave you behind, because you are the most important thing to me. I will never cease to love you. 

love, your mommy