Guest Post by Request - Curtis (Husband)

Ying has requested that I write a small post about how we got Yuuki so that we will never forget.

As Ying has already mentioned, I had a Keeshond named Scottie when I was young. Although I always loved him, I never really fully appreciated him until he was old. I remember when his hips were going and he was have difficulty getting around the house, he would struggle with all his might just to sit next to me while I was doing my homework. Even days before he died, he did his best to act as if nothing was wrong, and continue to love and give as much attention to each member of the family. Scottie was an amazing dog, and when he passed away I knew that it would be awhile before we got another one.

From the first day I met Ying, I knew she was an animal lover. She had spent many days telling me stories about the pets she used to own when she lived in China. The day that Ying moved to Vancouver, I had a feeling that one day we would own a dog together. This feeling came because she would ask if we could buy a dog every week for two years straight.

Sometime last summer Ying started asking to buy a dog every day, but we were still living with my parents at that point and I didn't want to burden them with that responsibility. I really wanted to buy a dog for my dad, but he still wasn't over the loss of Scottie. Then Ying and I came up with the perfect plan. I promised Ying that the day we move out to our own apartment in December, we would buy a dog. As part of the agreement, Ying agreed that my dad could babysit the dog at least a few days a week. That way dad gets all the fun of having a dog again, but I take all the responsibility.

In October, Ying found an ad that said "Keeshonds for sale!" and ran over to show me how cute the pictures of the dogs were. THEY WERE SUPER CUTE! When we called the lady, she said she had ONE LEFT, PRICED TO SELL! Ying told me that we HAVE to at least see the dog. Even though it was two months before we were going to move out, my mom and I agreed to at least see the dog.

While we were driving to the farm, the anticipation made all of us so excited, and brought back memories of Scottie when my family first bought him. Because I was going to see this dog with Ying and my mom (and not my dad), I pretty much figured there was a 98% chance this dog was coming home with us. For those that don't know, my mom and Ying don't fool around when it comes to buying stuff. This made me even more excited.

When we got to the farm, we heard this "yap yap yap." Oh god it was cute. We started looking around to see where this cute little "yap yap yap" came from. There was little Yuuki, hiding behind his bed, barking at us. As we walked closer, he would take two steps towards us, then run back, take four steps towards us, then run back again. At that moment Ying, my mom and I all had our two hands over our mouth, giggling like little girls cause this dog was just wayyyyy too cute. 

When the lady let us carry Yuuki towards the play pen, Ying whispered to me "we are buying this dog." When we got in the pen, my mom said to me "we are buying this dog." One minute later, I gave the woman the money, and Yuuki was ours. This is when the story gets interesting.

We took Yuuki to the Vet to get his recommended check-up. While there, we saw another Keeshond from the same litter. It didn't look so good. That dog went into the room, five minutes later, the owners came out crying like crazy........we were scared now cause it was our turn. We asked the vet what was wrong with the other dog, and he said "I think he has parvo"......what is parvo? Well parvo is basically a deadly disease that will kill an entire litter of dogs within a week. If one dog in a litter has parvo, it is almost guaranteed that the rest have it.

The vet told us to return the dog...RETURN THE DOG WE JUST FELL IN LOVE WITH....he said that if we kept the dog, there was a 50% chance he would die in a week. We went outside to talk about it. I am not going to discuss exactly what we said that day, but if it weren't for Ying, Yuuki would not be with us today.

We decided to take a chance, and it paid off. We were somewhat worried that having the same breed would make us compare him to Scottie or make us forget about Scottie. Fortunately, Yuuki is so unique and only brings out our best memories of Scottie. It makes us love Yuuki and Scottie so much more (if that's possible). 

Waking up every morning next to my wife and Yuuki makes each day worth getting up for. Its a feeling that I don't think can be matched (until I have a child). 

BTW, we named him Yuuki cause it meant "brave" in Japanese. BTW, Yuuki is not brave (YET), he is pretty much afraid of everything (besides girls and small dogs). This doesn't matter cause he will always be perfect in our eyes.