Happy Birthday Laney (The Dog)

Today is my dog Laney’s fifth Birthday. He is a Sheltie.

I first met Laney in May of 2004, I had just graduated from college, and I wanted to get a dog. I really wanted to get a Yorkshire terrier, because I had one named Kopper (1988 to 1998) and I really loved that dog. Instead of just getting a Yorkie, I did some research to find out exactly which dog breed I wanted to get. I probably should have looked at mixed breeds, but I really wanted some sort of a baseline of how the dog would be. With mixed breeds, it’s sort of a hit or miss. Will the dog be big, or small? Will he have lots of fur, or have short hair? I looked at all of the dog breeds at the American Kennel Club Website and made a list of the breeds that interested me. Then I looked at all of the breed's traits and narrowed down the list until I finally arrived at the conclusion that I wanted a Sheltie.
When i met Laney, he was eleven months old, which really wasn’t a bad thing. He had already been trained to go outside to potty and he didn’t cry all night like some puppies tend to do. He was already crate trained too.
His name is actually Lane. I just call him Laney so people don’t confuse him with my dad. And no, he was not named after my dad. Here’s how he got his name. When Donna, the breeder, told her mom’s former neighbor that Bree (Laney’s mom) was expecting a litter, the neighbor who’s name is Elaine, asked her to name a puppy after her and she agreed. When Laney’s litter was born, there weren’t any girls, just boys. So, in honor of Ms. Elaine, he was named Lane. When I brought him home, he already knew his name, so he remained Lane.

His favorite things to do are siting on sofas with the ones he loves, barking at just about anything from people walking by on the street to the neighbor's dog.

A funny addition to that story is that about a year later, Donna told Ms. Elaine that Bree was expecting another litter and Ms. Elaine asked, since the last litter didn't have any girls, could you name one of the girls from this litter after me? So, Donna named one of the girl puppies Lanie after Ms. Elaine and we went to visit Donna's new litter and my mom fell in love with Lanie. So, when Lanie was four months old, she became part of our family, and her name was changed to Cupcake, because having two dogs and one human with the same/very similar names gets confusing. I wonder what George Foreman's family does.