Aaron and I were becoming seasoned pros at marriage–we were a whole week married–and so naturally we were discussing what kind of dog to get. Because the first thing you want to do to a brand new marriage is add more responsibility to it. Duh.

We reeeeally weren’t planning on getting a dog so soon. We thought, “Oh yeah, maybe six months down the road, we just need to adjust to married life for now, you know?” We were both on the same page–until one fateful Sunday morning before church, Aaron logged onto craigslist and we found our puppy.

It was a total fluke. A dog like Steve-Z shouldn’t have been on craigslist. He was a six year old, purebred whippet and a retired SHOW DOG (read: perfectly trained). But his owner wasn’t showing whippets anymore and decided to put him on craigslist for a “small adoption fee”? Well that’s the story. (Sidenote: Purebred whippets can be SUPER DUPER expensive and insanely hard to come by. We have some friends who had to drive all the way across the US to pick up their whippet puppy!)

We went to church that day anyway, but it was totally useless–we didn’t hear anything because we were constantly checking our email, hoping Steve-Z was still available and we could visit him. An hour later we’d heard back from his owner, and we were in our car driving an hour and a half to San Antonio.

I’ll never forget my first glimpse of Steve-Z. He was beautiful and inquisitive, peering at us through a sliding glass door. I was smitten. We fell in love with this little well-behaved whippet–and we couldn’t believe our luck. Once his owner decided we would give Steve a good home, she waived whatever adoption fee there was, and we took him home. FOR FREE. I still can’t believe that!

So this is Steve-Z. My little ball of puppy happiness. We got him exactly one week after we got married, and, amazingly enough, it wasn’t a disaster–it’s been a ball. Now I want like 12 whippets.

P.S. No, his name wasn’t Steve-Z when we got him. Once we got him home, we promptly named him after our favorite movie The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. :)