Fridays With Ellie: The Happiest Puppy Around

This has been a week, I’ll tell ya.

Everything is fine and dandy and jazz hand-y, it’s just been a bit busy and a lot stressful. (Telltale signs of stress, no matter how much I try to deny it and claim I’m just so totes excitingly busy: My sexy scalp psoriasis is flaring in a major way, I’m growing a chin-strap made of pimples, and my stomach is letting me know what’s up.) But somehow I feel energized from it?

I’m off to the D.C. area today for my cousin’s bachelorette party. We’ll be winery hopping and then my cousin requested “a 10 pm bedtime,” and I know maybe she was joking, but that is exactly my type of party. I’m excited to see her and her puppy and my aunt, but it will also be my first night and weekend away from Ellie. So emotionally, I am feeling slightly unstable.

She’ll be with Brian, so it’s not like she’s staying home alone and throwing parties. But I haven’t been away from her overnight since we brought her home in December, so cue my tears. (Still not convinced I can handle children ever. Sorry, Mom. I will adopt more puppies, though, so you can have lots of grandpuppies to spoil! How do parents do all this stuff?)

So today we celebrate another edition of Fridays with Ellie.

Since we moved to West New York, NJ (still so amused by that — forever a New Yorker!), Ellie is the happiest seven-month-old in all the land. She has always been a life-loving dog, but she’s just so happy here. She loves peeing on all the grass and freaking out at all the geese and trying to eat all the goose poop. (Why do they do that? Is it sweet? Is anyone out there willing to test taste it and report back for inquiring minds?) Every night, I walk her to the ferry, which is just a few minutes away, and we greet Brian when he gets off the boat. Then we get some quality family time walking home, and usually we’ll stop at the dog park on the way to play for a while. It’s nice for all of us, and something we definitely didn’t do before.

Also, the whole potty training thing really clicked once we got here. We no longer have to take an elevator 28 flights down every time she might kind of sort of need to pee. Now she just walks over to the door, sits down, and stares at me, and then I take her out, and everyone is happy.

Now, enjoy these 6,000 photos of Ellie, who at seven months is clocking in at around 45 lbs.

Here are some pictures of Ellie with her best friend, me. (Actually, she completely prefers Brian, which kind of bums me out sometimes, but I just tell myself it’s because she’s with me all the time, and seeing him is like a special treat.)

Here are some times when Ellie was very sleepy. She plays hard and naps hard. Respect.

Here is Ellie proving that she will never outgrow her vicious, precious underbite. 

Here are some photos that show how freaking pumped Ellie is to be a West New Yorker. 

And finally, here are some photos looking back at Ellie’s spay recovery. She was a total champ during the two-week recovery period. We got an inflatable doughnut for her so she didn’t have to wear the clunky plastic cone, and she was good about not licking her scar or trying to pick at it. But oh my goodness, picking her up from her spay appointment was so insane. She was so drugged and so out of it, and she just stood there staring at me. She wouldn’t (couldn’t?) walk, so I ended up having to carry her the block home to our apartment — which would’ve been fine if she wasn’t 45 lbs. and I hadn’t had the flu at the time. It was a rough commute. She did look really cute in her inflata-cone, though.

Have a great weekend! Post lots of puppy pictures on Instagram and tag me in them so I can double-tap and then probably cry because I miss my dog.