Hattie

In this post I explained how we acquired Waveland.  Today, I will explain how I became the mom of a Great Dane puppy.

When I was about 20, I decided I wanted a Great Dane.  I was raised with Beagles and although they are not small dogs, they are definitely not a large breed either.  I began looking for a Dane in Florida, but I wasn't very successful. 

I asked for a Dane puppy for Christmas of 2005, hoping that perhaps my parents would have better success.  On Christmas Eve eve, I had a dream that I was getting a mostly white-furred, blue-eyed puppy for Christmas.  My friend and I spent Christmas Eve at work coming up with names for this puppy I was sure I was getting.  Because I love New York, all of the names revolved around NYC- Taxi, Tiffany, TriBeCa, etc.  On Christmas morning, I went out to the living room to cuddle with my new puppy...that wasn't there.  My parents told me that they couldn't find a puppy in Florida and that the ones out of state would be too expensive for their Christmas budget. I was disappointed, but I understood my parents' reasoning for not getting me a puppy at that time. 

In February of 2006, I found puppies in Missouri (I'm sure there were some closer) and I began emailing the owner of the kennel.  She had just had some adorable puppies born and I decided I would buy one of them with my own money.  The only problem was that the house we lived in didn't accept big dogs.  Therefore, to avoid being homeless, I opted not to purchase a puppy at that time.

By May 2006, I knew we were moving to a house that would allow big dogs, so I contacted the woman in Missouri again and she happened to be having puppies at the end of the month.  When the litter was born, I looked at pictures of the puppies and decided on "Puppy #5".  I would be getting her at the end of July when she was 8 weeks old.

We went on a family vacation to New York (yay!) and Washington D.C.  The entire time we were gone, all I talked about was getting this puppy.  My dad didn't believe that I had actually bought a Great Dane puppy.  My mom and I tried to convince him to buy Hattie's sister, whom we had already named Gracie.  He almost went for it, but then at the last minute, decided against it.

Due to the incredibly high heat index in Florida, Hattie couldn't fly until the temperature was lower than 75 degrees.  Therefore, my puppy's arrival in Florida kept getting delayed.  Finally, the breeder called me and told me that the airline had cleared my puppy, along with a few others coming from Hattie's litter, to fly on July 28th.  She would be arriving about 6 in the evening and coming by way of Houston.  I dragged my brother with me to go to the airport to pick her up.  We left about 4 to make the 45 minute drive to the airport.  Can you tell I was excited??  Just as we were walking into the airport, my mom called me to tell me that Hattie's flight had been delayed in Houston due to a bad storm and she wouldn't be arriving until about 8.  My brother and I now had about 3 hours to kill at the airport. 

When Hattie's flight finally arrived, she was soaking wet and shaking.  She had been in a crate from about 3am until 8pm.  Apparently the airline wasn't allowed to take her out of her crate for safety reasons.  They did however, set her and 2 other dogs out in the rain in their crates.  I was very upset at the treatment of my (and others') pet.  However, my excitement over finally having my puppy outweighed my disdain towards the airline.  Manhattan was now mine.

Here are a couple pictures of Manhattan.