Our Little Stud

June 5th 2015.

I remember feeling particularly angry this day. It was a Friday, and I only remember because it was the day before the Luke Bryan concert, which was on Saturday. My parents were both at work and my brother and I had been home alone all day. He is younger than I am so I had to ” take care” of him while my parents were at work. We were so hungry and we were waiting for them to get home so that we could go out for dinner.

Usually they would both get home around 5pm but it was well after 5. Around 7pm they finally came home. My mom came in the house with a little black fluff ball. We asked “Who’s dog are we watching now?”. She laughed at our initial reaction and confirmed that this little black fluff ball was here to stay...our new dog.

Susie was 14 years old at the time and I was 15. I think we were all preparing for the worst. There was never any sort of indication that her end was near. She had excellent health. She had her usual evening zoomies and still played like a puppy. The fact that she was nearly 15 years old (our birthday is in August) was enough for us to wonder how much longer we’d have with her. I always told myself that after Susie I could never get another dog, or one that looked like her. We never asked for another dog. Susie was all we needed. She was perfect! For some reason I always had an idea that my parents thought the same thing about getting another dog. It wasn’t going to happen. And that was okay!

Of course we were so happy to have this little puppy join our family. Up unitl this point I always thought getting another dog would somehow replace Susie. It’s a silly thought looking back at it. It was another toy poodle, though it didn’t look like one. The puppy had a long swirly tail, and short ears. I remember hoping that this puppy would grow to a medium size since it looked like a mixed poodle than a purebred toy poodle. It was different that what we were used to.

The puppy was a boy! Having a boy was so new to us. Many of our family members had girls there were very few boys. It was exciting to have change. He had so much energy and I wasn’t used it. I had never experienced the puppy stage with a dog. Susie and I were basically going through the puppy state together!

We couldn’t decide on a name for him. My brother insisted we name him “Oreo” he had white paws and a white chest. Would make sense, but it was so cliche. My mom suggested “Oso” which is ”bear” in Spanish. He did look like a little black cub but I knew it wouldn’t stick. My mom somewhat combined the names Susie, and Jazzy (Susies mom). We pondered that name for a long time but it ended up being his name.

Around the time that he was 16 weeks we took him to get his first hair cut. The groomer asked for his name and in a state of panic my dad and I both spoke...“Sazoo!”. It took us nearly 3 weeks to finally name him. And it took taking him to the groomers to do so. We purchased his name tag that day and we couldn’t be more happy with the name. 💚