Deciding on a puppy

When we started thinking about a dog, I thought there was no way I would want a puppy--too much responsibility and not enough time, and I had no idea how to raise a puppy and properly train one. We looked at the local animal shelters and the humane societies, and we didn't find anything that pulled at our hearts yet. So then we looked into animal rescue groups... and denied! we tried the german shepherd rescue and they denied us. Most rescues wanted you to have experience with the breed, or experience with large breeds, etc. So that wasn't working.

Chad would always come home with some offer on a dog that someone gave him, like a free great dane is we bred her and gave the person a puppy (way to daunting for me!), and I would always say no.
But somehow, he talked me into going to see a coworker's litter of South African Mastiff puppies. We looked into the breed, and we liked that they are big protection dogs, but that they are not aggressive, they feed off your reactions to situations, and they have a long life span for being such a large breed. The more we read into the breed's background, the more they seemed like the most unbelievably perfect breed. So we went to have a look...

Once my eyes fell on Stella, there was no turning back! We went to see the puppies at two and a half weeks old (Born September 19, 2009). They were in a little kiddie pool, and as I looked at all 13 (I think... huge litter!) of the puppies, the girl with no black muzzle and the reddest coat caught my attention. I picked her up, and she was the only one I held that day. Chad has his eye on the big male of the litter, and he wanted to name him Doka (I'm so glad that didn't happen!). After that visit, Chad and I discussed whether to get the girl or boy. I wanted a girl because she would be smaller, and because I like the idea of motherly protection versus a man standing his ground. Meanwhile, Chad's coworker had guaranteed my Stella (who at that time I thought we would name Zoe) to someone else. He tried to pawn other females on me, but they didn't call  to me, so after a while I said we could get the male. Then, the person backed out, and my beautiful girl was available again! We chose her and brought her home during the second week of November as a birthday gift for Chad. Stella was seven and a half weeks old and already weighed 18 pounds. And there begins the story of our parenthood (at least till we have actual human children).

Here is Stella the night we brought her home, laying next to her daddy

And here she is meeting our cat, Rosco, who was only seven months old at the time. They aren't loving family members yet, but they get along okay at least. It's crazy to see that they were so close in size when we brought her home.

So that is how we came to have the wonderful south african boerboel mastiff, our baby girl, who we love so much. And now to watch her grow...and grow and grow and grow...