One year ago my life changed forever. One year ago we brought Brodie into our lives and our home. One year ago we made the best decision of our lives!
I remember this day like it was yesterday. I was super anxious because we had met a dog the day before that I liked, but we needed to hear back about our application. Dan likes to exhaust all options before final decisions are made, especially decisions as big as adopting a dog and lucked into an appointment that afternoon at St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center in Madison, NJ. They had a lab/pit mix named Brooks that we definitely wanted to meet. Dan had a lab growing up and I LOVE pitties, so we thought he would be a great match! (Plus he was SUPER adorable in his picture!)
St. Huberts does same day adoptions if they feel it would be a good fit, so we knew there was a chance we would be coming home with a pup, but it was a late Sunday afternoon, so we weren’t 100% sure. We had originally had the intentions of adopting an adult dog or at least an older dog who would be out of the puppy stage…and then we met Brooks (AKA Brodie Boy!) The adoption counselor told us he was a 7 month owner surrender pup with a ton of energy. I was semi-expecting Dan to say no, but in the meeting room, we both feel hard for the loveable toy-obsessed pup that is Brodie!
The moment I knew he was mine was when he grabbed a toy and curled up on my legs. And then he did the same with Dan and I just knew we were going to be bringing him home. We had such a connection with him, something I had never had before!
We left with Brodie around 6pm, which I consider to be the time of his adoption, and brought him home! And he was in heaven! He LOVED the car, even in the dark (Dan sat in the back with him because I was worried he would hate it)! When he got to the house, we let him in and he explored every nook and cranny of the house, finding all the good places and his bed!
He ran around for close to an hour straight, playing and exploring. He was in absolute happiness and heaven. It was the start to one of the best and craziest years of our lives!
Now here we are a year later! We’ve had TONS of training ups and downs, some general ups and downs, and so SO many health issues (we luckily have Pet Insurance and the BEST Vet Tech best friend out there)! It has been the BEST year of our lives with him and we are so excited to see where the many years coming up will go!
Because he has been an absolute blessing for us, we wanted to celebrate his Gotcha Day with all of his favorite things! We went on a Sunday Adventure! (A day early celebration!)
We started the adventure off with a car ride! One of Brodie’s all time favorite things to do! He always gets so excited for them! We put the window down for him for part of the drive so that he could hang out the window. Don’t worry, he’s seat buckled in, so he can’t jump out!
We had originally intended on going to a dog park in Montville, NJ, but when we got there, it turned out to be a private town dog park that requires permits, so we couldn’t go. Brodie was less than happy-there was massive whining, so we left and went on a mission to find another dog park!
With the window open again, Brodie forgot all about the slight fail on our part!
We ended up at Pompton Lakes Dog Park and we’ll do a full blog post later this week about it!
Brodie had a GREAT time and of course got to play with his frisbee! He also got to play with the other dogs at the park! There weren’t that many, which is the way we like it!
Anyone find the common denominator in these photos? If you guessed frisbee, you would be correct! It’s his FAVORITE toy and ultimate motivator for good behavior!
After the dog park, we went to what may be one of the most dog friendly coffee shops ever! Boonton Coffee Co was an awesome stop on our Gotcha Day Adventure! They were great! Not only was the coffee AMAZING, but the enviornment and atmosphere were amazing! We met an adorable Shetland Shepard and some awesome humans too!
The best part was how much love Brodie got from all the humans! He was SOOOOO well behaved (which made me super happy and relaxed) and proved a few people wrong about their previous beliefs on pitties, so overall, a perfect stop!
We had one final stop on our grand adventure, and that was one of our favorite local pet stores-Morris County Pet Supply! We of course had to end our day by getting Brodie a special treat! But this posed a bit of an issues-Brodie is allergic to SO many things! All the fun and special cookies were out because he’s allergic to them… But the store employee was AMAZING! She helped us find a few special treats for him to enjoy that he wouldn’t get sick from! Plus they were awesome and even gifted him a bully stick!
Overall, we had an amazing celebration! We managed to do 90% of Brodie’s favorite things, which made him one happy pup! The only thing missing was swimming…but it was a tad cold for that!
Taking one look at this picture, we know he had a GREAT day and felt so loved! He’s the best thing that has ever happened to us and it seemed fitting to celebrate him on the last night of Hanukkah when he was our Hanukkah present to ourselves last year!