The Puppy Chronicles, No. 1: The Three-Hour Drive Home

We thought we were adopting one nearly grown, possibly potty-trained dog.

We had absolutely no idea that we were bringing home an entire family.

Welcome to The Puppy Chronicles: the true story of how we adopted one young dog and, two weeks later, unexpectedly became caretakers to Penny and her six newborn puppies. We were completely unprepared, learned almost everything as we went, and are sharing the funny, frightening, messy, and heartwarming lessons we wish we had known from the beginning.

Finding Penny

After searching GoodDog.com, Puppies.com, and several other websites, we found Penny. We weren’t looking for a tiny puppy. Jason and I both worked full time, so we hoped to adopt a dog closer to a year old—one who might already be potty trained and could live patiently with a cat.

Our Cocker Spaniel had passed away about a year earlier. We missed having a dog in our home, but we also knew how much time and attention a very young puppy would require.

Penny, we were told, was almost a year old. She appeared to be exactly what we were looking for.

We were told that her family was preparing for an overseas move and needed to find her a new home. She was about three hours away, which felt far enough to make the trip an adventure but close enough that we could bring her home in one day.

So, off we went.

Jason and I sang along to oldies and Elvis during the three-hour drive. We were excited, nervous, and still not quite believing that we might return home with a new member of the family.

Meeting Our Little Copper-Colored Puffball

When we first met Penny, she was a little copper-colored puffball. She greeted us with plenty of tail wags, although there was a bit of understandable trepidation behind them.

She didn’t know us yet. She couldn’t possibly understand why these two strangers had arrived—or that she was about to leave everything familiar behind.

We tucked her into the backseat, and Penny and I buckled in together for the trip to her new home.

She was anxious, but she wasn’t a whiner. As we would quickly learn, Penny was a remarkably confident little Cockapoo. Instead of crying or hiding for the entire trip, she was curious. She wanted to look out the window and take in everything happening around her.

That curiosity was one of the first little glimpses we had of the dog she would become.

Her former owners kindly sent us home with a zip-top bag containing her favorite food, along with a larger bag that lasted for almost two weeks. Thank goodness they did, because in all our excitement, we had completely forgotten to bring food with us.

Food, however, wasn’t the only thing we had forgotten.

The Questions We Didn’t Know to Ask

We also hadn’t known to ask some of the essential questions that new pet parents should ask before bringing home a dog:

• Is she spayed?

• Is she microchipped?

• If she is microchipped, is the registration information current?

• When was her last veterinary appointment?

• Do you have copies of her vaccination and veterinary records?

• Has she been boarded recently?

• Has she been bred or been around an unneutered male?

• What food does she eat, and how much is she normally fed?

• Does she take any medications?

• Are there any health concerns or unusual behaviors we should watch for?

We were brand-new pet parents caught up in the excitement of the moment. We simply didn’t know what we didn’t know.

Those missing questions would become much more important two weeks later.

Penny Arrives Home

We had prepared a few things for Penny’s arrival—although not necessarily all the right things.

Before picking her up, we had ordered a clear sided crate from Amazon. We also had potty pads waiting at home. The harness we purchased turned out to be slightly too small, but thankfully, we had a collar that fit well enough for Penny’s first miniature walk through the neighborhood.

Once we arrived home, we made a beeline for the grocery store to stock up on snacks and treats. Milo’s Kitchen treats quickly became part of our welcoming and bonding strategy—although, looking back, we may have been a little too eager to hand them out.

Then we discovered the toys.

Our previous dog, a Cocker Spaniel, had never cared very much about toys. Since she had passed away about a year earlier, that was the experience we carried with us while preparing for Penny. We hadn’t anticipated how different our new little dog might be.

From her very first day with us, Penny loved carrying something in her mouth. A soft toy seemed to comfort her and helped her settle into unfamiliar surroundings.

One of her first favorites was a KONG Sherps Llama. It was just the right kind of soft, fuzzy companion for a little dog who always seemed happiest when she had something to carry.

So, toys it was. We wanted our new girl to feel welcome.

Why Penny Stayed Penny

When I held Penny for the first time, she seemed thin. Maybe a little too thin—or perhaps she simply felt small compared with the heavier dog we had been accustomed to.

It wasn’t enough to alarm us. It was merely part of getting to know the size and feel of our new girl.

We had even prepared a list of new names for her. “Penny” wasn’t necessarily going to remain Penny.

That decision was made for us later that evening.

During Penny’s first walk, our adorable retired neighbors, Jenny and Bobby, came outside to meet her. They immediately insisted that Penny was the perfect name for a dog with such a beautiful copper-colored coat.

“They don’t make ’em anymore,” they told us. “A Penny is quite special now.”

And just like that, Penny stayed Penny.

The Detail We Didn’t Understand

Over the following two weeks, Penny began to fill out.

We assumed she was eating more as her nerves settled. Maybe we were being a little too generous with the Milo’s Kitchen treats. Maybe this was simply what she looked like now that she felt safe enough to eat normally.

We noticed the change—but we didn’t recognize what it meant.

Looking back, there were clues. Her slenderness on that first day, followed by her rapidly changing shape, was one of them. The questions we hadn’t asked might have been another.

But on that first evening, none of those pieces had come together.

We believed we had driven three hours and brought home one sweet, copper-colored Cockapoo named Penny.

Two weeks later, while trying to figure out why our newly adopted dog appeared to be constipated, we discovered just how wrong we were.

Penny wasn’t constipated.

Penny was in labor.

Coming next in The Puppy Chronicles: The afternoon an upset stomach turned into six unexpected puppies—and two completely unprepared pet parents tried to figure out what to do next.