Our first step in moving to Florida was getting a puppy. Though it was not everyone’s choice first step, it was definitely mine. We looked at breed after breed before deciding on the Mini American Shepherd. Then came finding a breeder. We looked at several before choosing, Atomic Minis located in Maryland. Lucky for us, at the time, we were close by and able to visit the puppies before picking one. From looking at pictures and a phone call with the breeder about what puppies might be best for our wants, we had our favorites. There were seven pups in total, all black tricolors or blue merles, which happened to be our two favorite colors. Our favorite going into the meeting was a black tri with one white leg, one tri colored leg, and pretty blue eyes.
When we met the puppies we could hardly tell the difference between them! They were all fur and belly rubs and cuddles. We ended up picking four to spend more time with because keeping track of all seven individual personalities was too tough! Even with only four, they were crafty escape artists. To my knowledge, we were the first potential buyers to visit the pups but they all seemed very eager to crawl all over us. By the end of our visit, I had a very hard choice to make, which puppy would be the best for us? We had narrowed it down to two, both boys, the black tri that was our favorite coming, and a blue merle who had been very cuddly from the start. After a day or two of deciding and worrying and contemplating, I chose the black tri. I chose him because he was adventurous and playful, but still came back for belly rubs. I believed he was the perfect puppy for us. A few days later, we drove to pick him up and realized we had hardly thought about names! There was a quick scramble to think up some options. We looked at Greek myth themed names and some that were completely random. In the end we decided on Griffin, somewhat because a website said Griffins (the mythical lion and eagle hybrid) have blue eyes. I’m not so sure, but we liked the name and it stuck.
Picking up Griffin was thrilling, he was a stressed little ball of fluff and was perfect. He wasn’t amazing on that first long car ride but he did manage to fall asleep eventually. He took a few days to settle into life after that. We were inseparable for the first few days: we walked around the house together, played with toys, and explored new things. Sleeping was a different matter completely. Though he was quick to start sleeping through the night, it was definitely not immediate. We got up usually twice per night, and I was fine with getting up for five minutes. However, the problem was he was not always as ready to go back to sleep as me. He would wander around the room and sniff the same things he had sniffed when we went to bed, evidently waiting for me to collapse out of exhaustion so he could chew on something he wasn’t supposed to chew on.
Our morning routine consisted of, going out, eating, playing, and then gradually greeting everybody as they came down stairs. This was his favorite part and probably still is. Between greetings, I taught him commands. He mastered ‘sit’ easily as he does it all the time when wanting something. ‘Down’ came soon after, though he still had trouble doing it when the hand signal was higher than the floor. He is quite a bouncy puppy so we work at every opportunity to teach him ‘off’ and he somewhat knows it now. I also taught him ‘touch’ (touching my hand with his nose), ‘spin’ (right), and ‘twirl’ (left). After that I ran out of inspiration for tricks and started with leash training and commands.
His coat is changing gradually. He developed some spots of brown on his front legs, cheeks, and ear tufts. New black ‘freckles’ also appeared on his snout. We started going on real walks with him and some more car trips. He has become great in the car, sleeping almost all the time in a kind of suspended animation. Now our mornings have a bit more training, we go on a walk, do training, eat, greet everyone as they get up, play, maybe a puzzle toy, and then nap. Griffin is a wonderful puppy and I can’t wait to see what he is like as he continues to grow and mature.