5 Reasons You Should Totally Get a Puppy

I recently had the honor of working with my friend Jason to help him and his wife Savannah welcome their newest addition to their little family: Bruce. Bruce is a 9 weeks old Bernese Mountain Dog and is 100% the cutest ball of fluff that I have EVER seen (if anyone tells Sam I said that, I will deny it until the day I die).

When discussing the session with Jason (he was surprising Savannah with it as a gift), we tossed around different options of where to take the photos. We eventually decided on Long Branch Farms. Being that COVID numbers were on the rise, and Long Branch was currently members only, we figured it would be the perfect place for a socially distanced session, Well that, and it’s freaking GORGEOUS. So many beautiful trails and a sunset that put actual stars in my eyes. I had an absolute blast with this little family of 3 and I cannot wait to watch sweet Bruce grow up into a giant snuggly sleepy slobbery beast.

The session had me thinking about getting my own pup, and what the over/under would be on Nolan kicking me out if I brought a new addition to the family home on a whim. Here are the 5 reasons I came up with to convince Nolan that I need a puppy:

1. Puppies are great for your mental health

   When we adopted Sam, I saw a crazy increase in my questionable mental stability. I love having someone to take care of. But, more than that, Sam takes care of me. If I’m having a tough day, he stays by my side, snuggles me when I’m sad, and always gives me something to laugh at. Granted, the same can be said about Nolan- but apparently getting a second boyfriend is “frowned upon”.

2. Puppies help you stay active

   Nolan, Sam, and I have recently taken up hiking. And by hiking, I mean a 0.5-mile trail at our favorite park that is enough to exhaust us and convince us we need to compensate our healthy activity with at least 2 buckets of beer at 50 West. With a puppy, we’ll have to be even more active- taking longer hikes, chasing him (or her) around constantly. More activity = more beer in my book so I don’t see a single flaw in this argument.

3. Making friends is easier with a puppy

   This is a big deal for our little family, having moved to Cincinnati, OH from Clemson right after college- it has taken us a long time to make the few (though AMAZING) friends that we have. A new puppy would be a friend MAGNET, people would be fighting over each other to hang out with us.

4. Puppies can help protect your house

   Now some of you may read this and think “don’t you guys already have a dog to do that?” and theoretically yes, we have Sam. And yes, Sam attempts to protect the house. However, for those of you who don’t know us very well- Sam is blind. Like as a bat. He can see shapes, shadows, and motion, but honestly, it’s kind of like the batteries are going dead sometimes and even that doesn’t work. He barks at walls in the middle of the night or the floor in the middle of the day and I just really do not trust him to protect us from an intruder. A puppy would bark at EVERYTHING so we would always be alert to any kind of threat.

5. Having two dogs will make you twice as cool

   Okay so if we’re actually calculating coolness, 2x0 is still 0. But I definitely think it’s the thought that counts and that having a silly blind dog AND a bouncing wittle puppy will give us at least 5 cool points. We both need all the help we can get so I think this should be the most important factor to consider.

Did I convince you to get a dog, and now you want to be sure their first memories with you are captured?