Close you eyes and image this, you moved to a foreign country for your significant other, only for them to break up with you 2 months later. You wish you could go back home for the holidays, but the country you’re in doesn’t follow typical western holiday schedules and therefore you are required to be in the office during those days. You haven’t really made that many friends due to anxiety and/or language barriers. What do you do on a cold and lonely holiday season? I can tell you what I did, I watched a lot of puppy videos. But not just any kind of puppy video, “teacup” Pomeranian puppy videos. I fell hard for the cute, fluffy balls with eyes, their little bean toes, those little wiggles. On a normal day I would have a will of steel, my heart wouldn’t be swayed and I wouldn’t dare to get a puppy, let alone buy one from a pet store, but they got me. I started googling “teacup” Pomeranians, and as fate would have it, they were commonly sold in the country I happened to live in. I happened to stumble upon the Instagram account that specialized in selling smaller sized dogs, and that’s where I managed to meet him, my first fur baby and biggest headache, Coffee.
At this point of my life I have had 3 family dogs, all German Short-Haired Pointers, despite me wanting and fighting to get a small dog for years. My family has always been the types that viewed dogs as protectors and exercise buddies. But I can’t blame them, my mom grew up on a farm during her childhood, and my dad didn’t grow up with any pets to begin with. And while my family dogs were indeed beloved members of the family, the idea of getting a little lap dog was unappealing. So I did what any logical person in their mid-twenties would do when they’re finally living on their own, got the puppy I always wanted. I’ve always wanted a Pomeranian since I was in elementary school as I researched them for a school project. And now that no one was in my way I could fill the lonely void in my heart with a fluffy little baby. The best part is that I figured I would keep them as a secret until it was time to head home. Everything was slowly coming together.
By chance it happened to be the year of the dog soon, and I emailed the shop I saw on Instagram since they seemed fairly trustworthy. I wanted my puppy to be 2 things, a female and either be a orange or red Pomeranian. Their customer service got back to me straight away, but they had 2 new puppies available, both male, and one of them happened to be orange. I became a bit conflicted, do I choose to see the orange male or do I hold out potentially for a female for an undetermined amount of time. I pondered my decision and felt that it couldn’t possibly hurt just to see the photos of the puppies. What a mistake that was, because as soon as I saw my little angry fur ball I knew I had to have him. 3 long months later, 4 hours on the bus, and an entire paycheck later, I met my fur baby for the first time.
Straight away you can tell that this little dog had a lot of attitude, I just didn’t know it at the time. He was the size of the genie pig, full of wiggles, mischief, and oddly too clever for his own good at times. He some how figured out how to climb over his puppy fence out of sheer stubbornness.
As a baby he wasn’t the biggest fan of cuddles, but definitely had to be in everyone’s space and make sure everyone was paying attention to him. He commands the room and knows the moves to win strangers over with his extremely friendly personality. As long as he flashed all those puppy eyes and showed off his little tricks to get all the treats he could eat. When I finally confused that I got a dog, you would think that my parents would have scolded me for hours, but they simply sighed and accepted it pretty quickly. They figured that I would probably be the one to get a pet while living abroad, and thanks to Coffee it was pretty easy for my family to accept the stray I picked up months later.
When I finally made my way back to Canada, coordinating getting 2 dogs as 1 person was tough and I ended up going the most expensive route. Flying back and forth and fly them over individually, something I personally wouldn’t recommend. Straight away Coffee and his brother, Soju the mutt, managed to win over my parents, specifically my dad. He absolutely loves spoiling the small dogs, and takes the upmost care for them. So much so that he got both of my dogs fat in no time, honestly a consistent problem even with my family dogs, whom didn’t care much for the puff balls that joined the pack.
My boys have been a part of my life for nearly 7 years now, Coffee especially so as Soju became very attached to my immediate family. Coffee is the one dog I will not compromise on, where I go, he goes, and I can confidently say that despite his lovability, Coffee has caused some rifts in my dating life, perhaps for the better. In the first most serious relationship after moving back to Canada, my Ex made me believe that he would be a great co-parent to my dog. The first mistake was the fact that my ex was extremely over confident for someone that never owned a pet. When we moved in together briefly, he was shocked to find out that we could not just simply leave Coffee home alone for long hours. My Ex was often frustrated that we couldn’t do spontaneous trips at the drop of the hat and that we had to plan around Coffee or plan thing with Coffee as we moved to a city 4 hours away from both of our parents. It isn’t shocking to find out that we didn’t last a year living together, though I can’t completely blame Coffee for the relationship being on the rocks.
However with the next relationship Coffee was definitely a contributing factor. I only dated this guy for approximately 3 months before he broke it off with me, and honestly it did end up making me very grateful for Coffee. The guy wasn’t super into the idea of pets, but I made it very clear that Coffee was a non-negotiable early on. The time when you should introduce your dogs to the person you’re dating is definitely debatable, but I was a bit pushed to introduce Coffee to them early more so on my parent’s side. The first day I brought Coffee with me, the guy was already deeply uncomfortable with Coffee wandering all over his house. When Coffee happened to get a bit dirty from our walk, the guy didn’t like the idea of lending a towel to dry him off, but luckily I brought my own just incase. However we got through it the first night, so there was some hope that things could potentially change over time? After all Coffee can win anyone over right? The breaking point was when it was time to go to bed. Due to stress and anxiety I would start to snore whenever I stayed at this guy’s house. Why was it so stressful? This guy unfortunately suffers from insomnia due to chronic pain he got from an accident. How does this involve Coffee? Well Coffee also snores due to having a slightly flatter snout then more fox faced Pomeranians. And this guy decided that this was a pretty big deal breaker, and I can’t blame him. How would you feel if you had two loud snorers in your life and you had insomnia. It was bound to be a huge disaster if we continued the relationship. That being said the guy’s time was extremely terrible. What I didn’t mention was that my family dog had actually just passed away, and I was cancelling all of our holiday plans since I was going to be mourning a family member. The guy had the bright idea to not only invite me over, but Coffee as well, to “cheer me up”. Those feelings only really lasted 1 night, so I was extremely frustrated at the chain of events. But now Coffee holds the badge of being one of the reasons someone had broken up with me, and only for snoring! He wasn’t even that particularly naughty.
I like to believe everything happens for a reason. Now I’m with someone who has taken care of animals before, understands that my boys are my first priority, and is so excited to co-parent them with me. In an odd way, this little dog helped save me from relationships that really weren’t right for me. Despite him being an impulsive purchase I made over 6 years ago, I can confidently say he is one of the best purchases I will ever make in my entire life.