First Meeting

We drove four hours to the mountainous areas of Georgia to see the 5-week-old puppies... and it was well worth it. By the time we got there, there were two girls and one boy left (out of a litter of eight). They were all sired by a pure-bred, registered Shiba Inu, and the mother was a light-colored Siberian Husky, neither of which exceeded 30lbs. Both were on site, and we were able to look at them.

Initially, William wanted to get the last boy, but he quickly changed his mind (and put down the poor little guy) when the puppy went number-two on him. Meanwhile, I picked up the darker colored little girl and held her for a while. As I held her and looked at her, we locked eyes and I could swear she talked to me; it was more mewing then anything else, but she had already stolen my heart.

Finally, William made me put her down so that we could consider all of the puppies, and as soon as I did, she did her duty on the floor. Quickly behind her came the other girl (a lighter coated puppy) who began to eat her poop! From then, our final decision was going to be the dark-coated puppy, who sat in the corner away from her poop as her remaining brother and sister played in it.

We had a week before we could go get her, so we went home and prepared for our new puppy, who we still hadn't named yet. Finally, we settled on "Pepper," for her dark coat.