Guster

I would be remiss not to mention an important part of Aaron's and my life together--Guster.

Last spring, when Aaron walked in with a 40 pound wriggly black lab/golden retriever mix, I wish I could say I was immediately in love. While I adored his big, black floppy ears, his huge eyes, and his wet snout, I was hesitant to say the least. Call it timing, perhaps. The exact same day I was introduced to the dog that we would later name Guster, I had resigned myself to the fact that we would never be dog owners. To affirm that fact, and to make it okay in my head, I had even gone so far to declare to a woman that I was meeting for lunch that our lifestyle was just not conducive for a puppy. After all, it's a huge responsibility. HUGE. Aaron and I are get-up-and-go sort of people. We fly by the seats of our pants. That just simply doesn't work if you have a dog. Timing as it was, my affirmation was contradicted and our lives as we knew them were forever changed when Guster literally wriggled his way into our front door and, eventually, our hearts.

I only say eventually because he kept us on our toes as we had to learn just how our house wasn't puppy-proofed. With Gus, there was no way to properly prepare our house because we never knew what we was going to get into. So, he let us know, usually in the form of a chewed up, wet, slobbery item that, post-Gus encounter, was only useful in our trash can. Then there was his habit of making our yard extra big by Gus trying to annex our neighbors' yards. Okay, so neither problem is completely abated, but improvement has been made. Now, nearly a year later, we've learned to cope with (and, if needed, correct) the subtleties and oddities that make Gus the little dude that he is.