New (Furry) Addition to the Shaughnessy Household

It all started when we bought a house--the puppy talks. I grew up in a family complemented by a dog for most of my life and Ryan always had cats. To say that I'm not a cat person is an understatement, so I always knew we'd get a dog eventually...it was just a matter of when and what kind of dog. Ryan was in the Dachshund camp and I was holding steady in the Labrador camp. Total opposites might I add. After our near break-in when we first moved into our house, the puppy conversation resurfaced in a more serious (and practical) light. We went back and forth between adopting and finding a breeder.We started looking into adopting at first, even went to adoption events and just couldn't find the right dog. I'm not sure if it's just the case in Northern Virginia, but adopting a dog is way more complicated than it's worth. There were lots of dogs that we did like, but they had such specific need criteria (i.e. bonded pairs, needs a fence, can't be home alone, etc.) that didn't work for us. Plus, after you paid your fee, there was an interview process and a home inspection to make sure all the "requirements" were met. We decided to go the breeder route in the end.

After dog-sitting one of our friend's miniature dachshund for a week, we decided that a dachshund was the best fit for us. We found a breeder with a 3 month old miniature short-haired female dachshund that melted our hearts. And just like that we found our family puppy! I'm convinced girl dog names are harder to come up with than boy names. Ryan started reading out names of authors from our bookshelf, we were that clueless what to name her. So whether you think it's cheesy or theologically awesome, we decided to name her Piper after John Piper. We're headed out to the boonies (on our 1st anniversary weekend I might add!) of Harrisonburg to bring her home this weekend.

Meet Piper: