I don’t think I ever properly introduced latest addition to our little family. You might have seen a bunch of pictures on my instagram of this little ball of cuteness we call Francis. He’s really my biggest joy and I’d love to start sharing some more personal stories from my life with you all. So here it is…

I believe we wanted to get a dog together since the day we met and fell in love. That’s one of a very few things we both agree upon without arguing. The time never seemed right tho. Back in Brighton it was almost impossible to get an apartment that states ‘pets allowed’ in the contract, so once we moved to Vilnius we knew that this dog thing is coming for sure.

We still didn’t want to get into this too quickly, so when our friends asked us to take care of their dog while they left to travel around Asia, we thought this could be a perfect trial prior getting our own dog.

Well it wasn’t the best decision. In fact, that was the worst idea ever… Simply because in 6 months we felt so deeply in love with our friends’ dog that my heart was broken to pieces on the day we had to give him back. At first I tried to pretend that all that freedom you get from being just 2 of you is awesome, but the truth is- I was devastated.

It was tempting to go & get a new puppy right in that moment. However, we knew that our NYC trip is coming in a month & decided to wait until we get back from our trip, so we can dedicate our full attention to the new family member.

It wouldn’t be me if I could just sit there and patiently wait for the things to come my way. Thus, every morning of our trip I still checked facebook pages of all those animal shelters in Lithuania. And then one day I saw him. That was it. I knew that this is OUR dog. He was wire-haired, cross pointer and had those dreamy brown eyes, I didn’t care if he was sick or healthy if he’s going to grow the size of a horse or stay tiny. I emailed the people taking care of the pup immediately. We agreed that they’re going to wait until we get back from our trip & we kept emailing back and forth for the rest of our trip. Me & Tomas decided to name the pup Francis & love him forever. We just got that feeling that’s hard to explain.

On our way back home I received an email saying that they found worms in puppy’s poop, but there’s nothing really to worry about. Of course, it’s not the best news, but it’s pretty common for rescue puppies to get them if they were not dewormed properly. At that point I didn’t expect anything bad to happen, so we enjoyed our flight back & even met our friends for drinks on the night of the arrival.

First morning back home, we were on our way to another city for the puppy pick up when we received a phone call. It said that Francis got really sick. Apparently, he has been vomiting for hours and the situation was really bad. They even told us that it might not be necessary for us to come anymore as his life is currently in danger and we might not even be able to take him home. My heart starter pounding, I knew that I’m not turning back from this puppy now and we agreed to meet at the clinic & do the best we can to help this poor soul.

I remember walking into the vets office and seeing this little ball of fur patiently waiting for his meds while being so weak that he couldn’t even keep his head up. He was soo excited to see me tho. I know this sounds crazy, but it felt like he recognised me. I couldn’t keep my tears anymore, it was so emotional. The vet explained that next 24 hours is going to tell if the puppy is going to survive or not and we took him back to his current shelter. The women taking care of Francis used to be a veterinarian and I felt like she could do more if something urgent is going to happen during the night. It was the most stressful 24 hours of my life. We kept calling constantly, checking in on the puppy and were glad to know he finally started to drink a bit of water and stopped vomiting.

As soon as we woke up the next working we drove to see him & finally got to take him back home. Of course, at first we had to stop by the vet’s office to get more injections and have a treatment arranged for us. On day 2 he finally started eating some food and even walking a bit around the room. On day 3 he was already playing and ready to eat EVERYTHING, even the boy’s iphone charger! All in all, it took us more than a week of daily visits to the vets to put him back on his feet completely, but he’s one healthy pup now!

Francis is currently attending training school and is one of the top students. Of course, I was the one to decide on that, haha. He hasn’t done any damage to our flat apart from chewing up some minor things, but it was all our fault really. The best thing puppy is going teach you very soon is that leaving your stuff on the floor is a very stupid idea.

Despite all the stress and responsibilities that came with this new friend, I strongly believe it’s the best decision I made in my life. He brought so much joy and meaning to our days. I can’t wait until the weather gets better & we can enjoy those endless walks outside. Francis is definitely more than enough for us at this point, but I believe the second dog is strongly in our plans for the future.

Hope you guys enjoyed this post! Are you a dog person at all? Don’t forget to follow Mr. Francis on instagram, he’s one awesome dude!