Meet Buffy, our new puppy!!

Quick side-note: Diana and I want to make sure that Buffy is well-socialized dog and meets as many people as possible. If you are in the area and want to spend some quality time with the cutest puppy you have ever seen drop me a line: tang.kingsley@gmail.com. Now on to the PUPPY!!

One week after our first wedding anniversary we the best anniversary gift EVER! Buffy, our new puppy.

Buffy is a Shetland Sheepdog more commonly known as Shelties. People often refer to them as miniature Collies (ala Lassie) however, Shelties are a different breed with distinctive characteristics. People originally bred Shelties to suit the terrain of the Shetland Islands. This breed is classified as a “working dog” and is still used to herd sheep and cattle. I’m not sure how great a herder Buffy will be. She has just discovered her feet so I think we have a ways to go.


We got Buffy home from the breeder Saturday night. She was great in the car ride home and slept for most of the hour and a half drive. We got home, took her down to go pee and got her set up for the evening.

We’ve heard many stories of how difficult the first night is for a puppy and new owners. I can imagine, Buffy is away from her brothers and sisters for the first time in a strange new world. Often times puppies will whine the entire night through but Buffy settled in rather quickly. She had a nice set-up in her crate with a sock from her breeder’s home her koala friend and a warm-blanket. The only noise we heard from Buffy was some whining around 3am. Diana got up and took her downstairs to pee and Buffy promptly did. Once Buffy was back in her crate she fell right back to sleep and slept until around 7am.

Sunday morning we started house-training Buffy. Diana and I decided to base our training methods on Dr. Ian Dunbar’s approach. He was one of the first proponents of using positive reinforcement over negative reinforcement in training dogs. His training methods focus on creating opportunities to catch the puppy doing things right (which is a great approach when teaching students).Dunbar’s method is to take the puppy to go pee and/or poo every hour. The may not go every time you go out but being consistent gives the puppy many opportunities to go.

To prevent the puppy from going inside the puppy spends time either being watched or in a crate. A puppy will not pee or poo in his or her crate in an effort to keep the space clean.

There’s a lot of time going up and down the elevator (we live on the fourth floor), but Buffy is doing well. She’s only had one accident so far and is getting the groove of going outside.


We’ve only heard Buffy bark a handful of times. She has a quiet way about her. Buffy is a little timid but I think she’s just being careful. The city is a scary place for such a small puppy. There’s a lot of pedestrian, cars, trucks and the Metra commuter train. Buffy’s strategy to deal with these things when we are outside is shuffle back to me and observes from the safety of between my feet. There has been a huge different in her comfort with meeting new people and new dogs and its fun witnessing her come out of her shell.

Buffy is pretty much the cutest ball of fluff you have ever seen.

Everything she does is cute. No, not cute, but stupidly adorable. If you think she looks cute in these pictures, man in person, it's not even funny. Now even though she doesn't know any tricks and is still working on learning her name, at least she has the watching Star Trek thing down.

We've been preparing for Buffy's arrival for about 10 months and we are so excited. Diana is bursting with joy and I have a this great feeling of satisfaction. It's taken a lot of work to get to find Buffy and we've been anticipating this for almost year. Last week, when we set up Buffy's pen it really seemed empty without our special girl.

Now that Buffy is in our lives her den feels right and our lives feel so much more full. I'm tired, I haven't slept all that well worrying about Buffy. I did not get nearly as much done today as I would have liked because I was taking care of the puppy and even though I'm becoming more comfortable around Buffy, I still feel like I have know no idea what I'm doing. But the thing is I'm loving every second of the time I spend with Buffy and I'm looking forward to sharing her life as the newest member of our family.

And yes, we named her after Buffy, as in the vampire slayer. Later, I'll explain why.