Paquito!

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Happy September, you guys!!

Sorry for the long silent treatment around here….I know, I know…almost died without me….hahahha of course not!

Nothing special going around here lately, just living the common house wife life, except with one more addition to it!

I decided to properly introduce Paco (Paquito is little Paco in Portuguese ❤ ) on the blog! If you follow me on Instagram (@brunaiglezias), you know that it has been just a little more than one month that Paco is in our lives!

Since that, a lot of things have changed around here, like, we don’t need an alarm clock in the mornings anymore, Paco is already up by 7:30 walking around in our room to make sure someone wakes up to take him for his morning walk. In the beginning we were taking turns to go out with him in the morning, but now I go everyday, and Rafael goes on the weekend. I also go during the afternoon, and when he can, Rafael goes at night. He already came house trained (thank God!) so he doesn’t do any of his necessities in the apartment, although we had one incident until now….he tried to let us know that he wanted to go out, because he didn’t stop staring at his leash and the door and also kept crying, I just wanted to brush my teeth before, and while I was brushing, he couldn’t take any longer and peed on the floor. Rafael said that he was already afraid and ashamed while he was peeing, he even was shaking….but now at least we know his limit.

But let me tell you the story of how we found him! Finding a dog here in Germany, or at least in Berlin is really hard! In Brazil is so much easier, because sadly there are a lot of street dogs and cats there, in fact, the two cats that I had there were from the streets, honestly, if I had a big house, I probably would’ve been the crazy animal lady that takes all the animals from the streets. I have this compassion with street animals since I was a child, I would bring cats to my house and my mother would go crazy! hahahaha But here in Berlin, they don’t have these kind of problems with cats or dogs. I just saw one time a cat on the street, and it was probably lost. So my first thought was to look for a dog in the animal shelter, there’s a big one here in Berlin, but we were looking for puppies, and there weren’t any there. We didn’t have a specific breed, just couldn’t be too big because our apartment is kinda small for a big dog. We also wanted a puppy because it’s our first animal together as a married couple, we wanted to experiment it all. The other thing that I found odd here, is that even if you take an animal from the shelter, you have to pay for it, and it’s not cheap, around 250 -300 euros. I understand why they do this, to help them of course, but in Brazil you would never pay for a dog that comes from the shelter. You also have to fill out questionnaires about your personal life, and they also come to visit your home and see if you are the right person for the dog you are asking for. I can understand this, because these people really care about where and whom the dog is going to, and they want to make sure that they are going to a loving home. But in my opinion, this is a little too much, for me they put up too many boundaries, that some times can difficult the adoption. We also tried with shelters that rescue dogs from other countries like Spain and Cyprus, but the cost would also be higher because you have to pay for their aero transportation to Germany, and usually they go to foster homes far from Berlin, and in the end you would have to go to the foster home twice, the first time to meet the animal and if there is a mutual feeling of love, you would go again to pick up the animal. This was impossible for us, due to money and travel. We were almost giving up, but a friend told us about Ebay Kleinanzeigen, it’s a free ebay website where you can sell anything that you own. In the beginning I was a bit skeptical and a little afraid to you the truth (afraid of scams), and actually we made an appointment with this guy to meet with him and his 4 month old jack russel, but the guy didn’t show up and didn’t contact us again. By that time, I really began to think that we weren’t supposed to have a dog, the universe was totally conspiring against us! ahahaha I’m not a dog expert, I know little about dog breeds, but after I saw that cute little jack russel, I thought that maybe it would be the perfect one for us, so I kept looking on ebay. In the end, little puppies 10 to 12 weeks old were too expensive for us, I came across Paco’s ad: 5 months Jack Russel mix looking for a loving new home. (Yes! That’s us!) So I contacted his previous owner to set up an appointment to meet Paco. We were just supposed to meet him, and then come back home and think about it until Monday, because on Sunday we were going to meet another person from the shelter that was bringing a dog from Spain. But the moment that we saw Paco, we totally fell in love with his cute little face ❤ In the end, he came home with us the same day, a few hours after we met, because there was this other person meeting him also, but the previous owner decided we should keep him…talk about a good first impression 😀 We paid 200 euros for him, he already came vaccinated, dewormed and chipped…oh, and he also has an european passport…can’t believe that my dog has better status of passport than me…ha!

What can I say after one month?! Our life is happier with him, it’s impossible to be sad around him. He is wonderful and very obedient inside the apartment, he hasn’t chewed anything he is not supposed to, he loves a bath and has no problems when we are clipping his nails. He is my little shadow, he always stays in the same room as me, even follows me to the bathroom, but of course he doesn’t come inside with me…hahaha The only problem is walking on the leash and establishing the pack leader, he is learning very well, in the beginning he would choke himself with the leash, but now he is a little bit calmer, but still not 100%. Since I pass more time with him, I am the one who teaches him to walk or even a new trick, so I think he sees me as the pack leader, or at least I am trying to be…hahahha Even if he is a mix, his core is purely a jack russel terrier, he is very hiper active, and needs to waste a lot of energy, he is very intelligent and curious about everything, and it’s hard for him to pay attention when we are outside, since there are a million things better to sniff around….a little hunter he is! Berlin is also an awesome city to have a dog, they can even ride the subway! A lot of restaurants allow dogs, and they can also have a lot of fun swimming in the lakes and running around the countless parks around the city. The only thing that annoys me the most, is the countless poop on the sidewalks, people do not pick it up with a bag and throw it away. It’s a behaviour that I don’t really understand why, who wants to step on dog poop?! If everyone does their job, there won’t be any poop around the streets, keep this in mind! And thumps up for you who picks it up, you are a rare kind around here!

This past week he gave us a little scare, he started to have diarrhea, then came the blood and vomiting. I took him to vet right away and discovered that he had gotten the parvovirus, I got really, really scared, because in Brazil, this disease kills a lot of dogs. But luckily he was already vaccinated, and three doses of antibiotics plus eating rice, chicken and drinking black tea for a week made him better, thank God! Because I can’t imagine my life without him anymore, even if it’s been just one month with him.

The pictures below were taken at the Hundelauf at Tempelhofer Feld, it’s a big fenced area where you can play with your dog, and let your dog play with other dogs as well. Paco already made a best friend, his name is Reggie, and he is a pure jack russel, I think they would play all day long if we let them…hahaha I also uploaded a video of them playing together on Instagram, come and see if you are curious!

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