Meet Cody

His first picture on our professional camera. He didn’t realize what it was yet.

Cody came to us as ‘Hank’. Ick. I know. That’s why he’s Cody now, ha. Did you know it takes a dog 2-3 days to learn it’s new name? I personally never called him by his ‘first’ name so that might be one reason he took to it so well, or maybe the poor thing liked it better too. 😉 Hehe

Cody is about 2 1/2 years old now. He is a purebred English Labrador Retriever. The story is that the man who had him bred found out, after about 4 months, that he was allergic to him. They tried to sell him and no one wanted him. So they gave him to a friend, who immediately took him to the pound. My brother-in-law’s wife had a friend who worked there and realized that this dog was Cody (Hank, whatever). So, the animal lovers that they are, Mike and Monika rushed to the pound and paid his bail (got him out, saved his life, etc.).

I’m hiding from the camera, cuz I HATE my picture being taken.

Insert us into the picture. We were still living in our first apartment and there was a no pet rule. Fine with me. I’m not a falling-all-over-myself-to-get-to-the-animal kind of dog or pet person. However, we were in the process of buying a house. So randomly one day, as I’m on the step-stool cleaning something in our old kitchen, I get a text from my hubby. Odd, I think, as he normally doesn’t text me during the day when he’s at work. Just casual stuff. How are you, etc. Then he lowers the boom. 

What do you think of the dog in this picture? He’s a purebred, he’s worth yada-yada, he’s mostly trained, oh and he’s housebroke and HE’S GOING TO DIE IF WE DON’T TAKE HIM!!!!! Leave it to the man to play on the woman’s emotions. I doesn’t really matter if she loathes dogs, just say that last phrase and it’s all over. Next thing I know, Cody already made the four hour trip to my in-laws who would keep him till we closed on our house. One week into our new place and he became a permanent resident.

I am obsessed with my bone.

I wasn’t super happy about it. We were supposed to wait till we had our family to add a pet, but he’s grown on me and I on him this last year and a half that he’s been ours. There certainly were a lot of rough times (peeing problems whenever he saw a man – including Ryan, shredded $100 Dickies overalls, the entire dining room carpet, a whole basket of clothes, etc.) but it is nice to have a companion who listens to every noise and takes note if it’s out of the ordinary. He’s super friendly, but if he senses something is wrong he doesn’t run and hide, or act friendly about it. You know, like the whole saying about golden retrievers – they would help the robber carry the goods out of your house if they could. No, that’s not him. He also doesn’t ever bark. He’s the quietest dog I’ve ever met. Our neighbors didn’t even know we had a dog for a while! That, again, is situational. My hubby came in from hunting one day when I was just waking up, in all the garb. Cody’s fur stood up and he ran at him barking and carrying on with a roughness we didn’t know he had. I thought he was going to jump on his arm like the German Shepherd police dogs do in training. (He didn’t.) Haha, it scared all of us I think, and he finally calmed down when Ryan identified himself. So he’s my, sometimes annoying, cute companion attack dog. 😉

See my bone? See it? (He’s such a ham)