The Joys of Owning the Most Stubborn Pupper in the World

On September 24th, 2016, our lives changed forever when we brought this crazy little pupper home with us. Before my boyfriend and I decided we would bring another dog home, however, we already had my pup that I've had even before I was dating Andrew. She was definitely a challenge coming from a broken past full of abuse and neglect, and training her and showing her the love that she deserved was hard. We felt like she deserved to have a pupper friend to share her life with and make her days a little brighter. What we didn't expect was the challenge that came with our new found bundle of fur. When we first brought our little guy home he already came with a handful of problems. He was very sick with kennel cough and had a belly full of parasites. At first we had no idea, and like any new puppy parent, we wanted to show him off to everyone that we know. BAD IDEA. Not knowing about the kennel cough at first, our little puppy ended up getting all of our doggo friends sick with kennel cough. Which was our first mistake. Our second mistake was thinking that his calm, cool, and collected attitude that he had during his sick days would stay forever. We learned very quickly that we were absolutely 100% wrong on sooooo many levels. Not even a week after we gave him his medicine for his kennel cough, he was up and about getting into EVERYTHING. Everything except things that he knew his mommy and daddy wore daily like shoes and clothing thankfully. Everyone else's stuff, however, was completely up for grabs. And teaching him how to consistently go outside to go potty was a challenge all in itself. We would take him outside to go and five minutes later he would go inside after we let him back in too. It took months until he finally got the whole potty training thing down for good. All of those things, however, were just the beginning. We had no idea we had an escape artist on our hands as well. About four months after we brought him home we decided to move into Andrew's parents house for a little to save up some money to move later on. This led to bigger and badder problems with Zero constantly running away with his partner in crime, Andrew's parents' dog Bullitt. Not only would he run away, but he would come back with a plethora of different findings from out in the woods. From a white tail deer vertebrae, possum, hoof, squirrel, and once a leg. He treated them as trophy findings and would lay them at our feet when he would come up to us after an outing. As mad as we were we just felt as though we couldn't scold him for wanting to bring something back to us. The only scary thing we were up against was when we decided to move out on our own back in Hamburg where he could get hit by a car. As he got older, however, he stopped trying to run away so much, but if he ever did it would be for longer than just 15 to 30 minutes. Zero is a very stubborn pupper and when you would try to call him back into the house he just completely ignores you and acts as though you aren't there. And recently we have been letting him outside in our neighbors yard where he has discovered a way to escape through their gate. A week ago he got out of their yard and we didn't realize it until I tried to bring them both back inside after being outside for about a half hour. He was gone and we had no idea where to even start looking for him. It was raining and there was slushy snow everywhere. It was just a horrible night to actually lose Zero in our little town. After searching for two hours we decided to take a break and Andrew needed to go to bed. I waited at home for a little while before going back out and searching for him once again. After calling a friend, we decided to go out together and look and not even 10 minutes after leaving I get a call from Andrew telling me that Zero just waltzed up to our porch and was waiting to be let inside. Owning this dog has been an adventure and a half, but loving him has been the easiest part. He may get on both of our nerves but I wouldn't trade this pupper for any other dog in the world.