it looks like for whatever reason, the colours on the bluesky upload are washed out compared to how they're supposed to look >:(

canon-compliant appearance:

sora has been a lot of fun and she makes me happy!! and the grievances of having a puppy are going to be so worth it when she's an adult (doing training with her has been one of my favourite things!)

i still wish we'd waited longer, but at the same time, i'm so glad we have our sora now

don't get me wrong—it's been really hard without luna. i'm going to miss her forever. filling the silence in the house with a puppy didn't do anything to negate those feelings, not that i expected it would.

having sora has brought me a kind of structure that has been helping me get through, however

one of our friends irl also has a small child (just under 3 now) and it reminds me of all the nights he'd be like, "okay, i can play games tonight, daughter's asleep"
and then she'll wake him up at 3am because she wanted fruit loops

i know Sora is the name of a few notable fictional characters, but we picked the name because of the meaning, and the syllable count (all of my pets' names have had two syllables so going against that felt wrong LOL)

sora, the sky, and luna, the moon... i thought it was really lovely ;o;

so yes, i still regret getting another dog so soon. sometimes i regret getting a puppy, who needs a lot of supervision and activity, as opposed to an adult dog.

but i already love our new puppy, and i know she's going to turn out amazing. she's already so, so good!!

it's going to be okay.

all of it has been extremely rough. i do feel like it IS slowly getting better, and i know that eventually the anxiety will go away as i adjust to the changes.

addie and i have been talking a lot about the things we can do to honour luna and work on healing. i know that, too, will mend with time.

i don't want to get too deep into it here either, but the other piece is that i didn't give myself enough time to process losing luna. i didn't think it could get any worse than it was, but it feels like i'm already ripping into fresh wounds.

i'm not resentful of the puppy, but i miss luna so much.

i want to be clear, while it's very valid to be frustrated about your puppy's behaviours, that hasn't been the case for me!

my anxiety feels completely irrational, but a lot of it has to do with the unknowns about the future, massive life changes, and feeling like i fucked up getting a dog so soon.

i only recently learned that "puppy blues" isn't just a cute term for feeling upset over the normal things puppies do. it's a real phenomenon that's a lot closer to PPD, and apparently it's common to develop severe paralyzing anxiety as soon as the new puppy comes home

as i have learned firsthand!!

i am so glad we have her. she's already so smart, she's friendly with new people, she's sweet and affectionate.

what i wish i'd known going in was how bad my anxiety would get having her around, and how much it intensified my grief over losing luna.

we found an adorable border collie mix from out of state, a puppy who had been taken from a hoarder situation. we applied, not expecting it to actually go anywhere.

well. we got accepted, we met her, and went through with the adoption.

let me tell you, first off, she is a WONDERFUL puppy!!

we lost luna a month ago. i hated the quiet.
we had been tentatively preparing ourselves for a second dog over the past few years (we wound up deciding against it, but i've been doing a lot of research and slowly accumulating supplies)

so, we'd been looking on petfinder mostly hypothetically.