A Gift for Myself

Something that I don't talk about often is the fact that I have pretty bad anxiety. To be honest, most people that know me personally might not believe that. I'm the kind of person who smiles a lot and enjoys cracking corny jokes. Certainly those aren't the kind of people who have crippling, seizure-like panic attacks, right?

You may be surprised.

A strange fear that I had growing up is the only reason I chose to receive an epidural when I was in labor with my son. I was truly afraid that I would have a panic attack in the middle of the process and cause something to go wrong. That thought itself caused anxiety.

It's that serious.

During my childhood I had night terrors about things that children should never even think about, let alone stress over. The night terrors caused my to sleep walk, which was a constant worry for my parents. I even let myself out of the house a few times.

Every time that happened, I woke up curled on the front porch with my dogs.

THAT is what this post is actually about.

When I say that I'm a dog person, it means a little bit more than it usually does when people say it. I don't simply prefer dogs to cats (although I adore cats as well), I have a rather hefty obsession. I do mass amounts of research on any dog-related subject that I don't already know about. People that know me often ask me questions about anything from "what breed is this dog?" to "how to a treat this particular wound/illness in my dog?"*

My entire life, when I haven't felt right or things haven't been 100% for me, I've constantly ran to my dog/dogs. For 16 years, that was a fantastic German Shepherd that I had received as a 6th birthday present.

Her name was Charidy and she was my best friend. She passed away 2 months after I turned 21.

Charidy is the reason for my love of the German Shepherd breed and the reason that I know an insane amount about the phenomenal breed.

She is the reason that the first dog that we are adding to our family will be a German Shepherd.

Guys, I am SO excited. The Ellises are getting a dog!

Now, in my household, that means that I have done an extensive amount of searching to find a above-and-beyond fantastic breeder who I have come to know personally and trust to help me choose a puppy that will flawlessly join our family without problem. I succeeded in this venture with no problem.

We have decided to purchase our new family member from a small in-home kennel called von Alten Zedernwald located in my home state of Arkansas. They breed west German bloodlines with deep pigmented red and black coloring as well as large-boned structure. They have a long and stock coated puppies, so our dog very well may grow to look like a bear!

Currently, my plan is to choose a male stock coated pup. Jarrett likes the long coats as well, so the coat type is up in the air as the temperament of the dog is really what's important.

I trust the breeder, who has become a friend to help me choose a dog that will grow to get along well with my son, but also do well in the training aspect as I intend to have him trained to be my service dog. I have done a lot reading about how well service dogs combat anxiety and, as I'm not a fan of medication, I think this route will truly work out the best for me, personally.

As the female that we have chosen to pick a puppy from doesn't go into heat until next month, we won't be receiving our pup until sometime in June. That's after Jarrett will have already left for his training, but that will give our boy plenty of time to bond with my son and I, who he will be spending most of his time with.

All that I've been able to do so far is make a small list of names that I enjoy. I've picked 10 to choose from and I'm quite happy with the short list. Here's it is!

- Cedar

- Danzig

- Haskell

- Ozymandias (Oz or Ozy)

- Puck

- Quixote (pronounced kay-oh-tee)

- Rooney

- Utah

- Yukon

- Zucco (pronounced zoo-koh)

As we go through this process, I plan to write a series of articles that revolve around all things canine! Please keep an eye out and follow along.

The featured picture for this post is one of my favorite shots of Charidy!

As always, thank you so much for reading.

*Although I'm not a professional of any sort (yet! hopefully...), I typically have an answer that'll help for the time being at least and if I don't, I ALWAYS send people to a vet. I'm not that full of myself, haha. I just know a lot of home remedies that might be helpful (until you can get to your vet most of the time), or might save some money (peroxide to make your dog expel something poisonous they've eaten instead of a large bill for your vet to do the same exact thing in their office...)

#MansBestFriend #GSDs