Meet Max

Please allow me the pleasure to introduce the newest member of our family, Fearless Maximus Are You Not Amused *_____* (our last name). We are calling him Max for short.

Why the long name? Well apparently dogs from champion pedigrees have these really long names. Both Max's mom and dad have champion pedigree. To all of that hodge-podge I say, "whatever," but apparently it is important when you are purchasing an English Bulldog.

Fearless Maximus was his Daddy, which is odd because Maximus was one of the names we had thrown out there in case we did bite the bullet and get a dog. We love the movie, "Gladiator." Remember Maximus? Russell Crowe says a line that we just love when he is in the Coliseum, "Are you not amused?" So that is where that part of his name comes from.

Getting a dog was such a HUGE decision for us. About 3 months ago I approached Jon and asked him what he thought about having an inside dog. We currently live in a subdivision without a fenced-in yard. Hopefully when this awful real estate market rebounds we have a little over 6 acres that we plan to build a house on. We have told the kids for ages, "When we get on our 6 acres, that is when we will get a dog." You see, I am the kind-of girl who NEVER EVER in a million years wanted an inside pet. I have a hard enough time keeping the house straight with 3 kids and a husband.

Anyway . . . I have no idea why my heart changed about having an inside pet.

• Maybe it is because I have this strong desire to expand my family but I DO NOT want to be pregnant.
  
• Maybe it is because I see my kids growing up way too quickly and I feel that having a dog around will slow it down some.
  
• Maybe it is because when my kids get grown and gone we will have a little piece of them left with having a dog grow up with our family.
  
• Maybe it is because I am currently reading "At Home in Mitford, " and Father Tim's dog, Barnabas, has been stolen from him, and my heart aches for Father Tim (can you tell I really get into the books I'm reading?). I keep reading on to find out if Barnabas is ever returned to Father Tim.

For whatever the reason is, Jon went to searching . . . seriously searching. Which dog would be best for our family? What temperament do we want? Yada, yada, yada . . Jon has always wanted an English bulldog. We are huge fans of GA Bulldogs and love UGA (the mascot). However, bulldogs come with a pretty price tag. We debated on various kinds of dogs, but always went back to the bulldog. We decided that the $$$ was the only obstacle to getting a bulldog. Jon spent just about ALL of his free time searching for dogs for 3 months.

On Friday we took a 4-hour car trip to Woodbine, GA and decided to look at a bulldog. The price was a little better than what we were originally looking at spending. I guess we decided to go because we thought we were getting a bargain.

Instantly Alec and I fell in love. Max had me at Hello! "Can we get him, can we get him?" Well. . . obviously the answer to that question was Yes!!

First time in the car

Best buddies

Our first stop was Pet Smart. We had absolutely NOTHING! Here is Max in the shopping cart because we didn't even have a leash.

People in GA are CRAZY about English Bulldogs. After all, when you pull hard for GA Bulldogs, you pretty much have to go ga-ga over them. We had this older lady follow us around the store, another lady take a picture of him, another girl told us this was her dream dog. We had a man pull up beside us in the parking lot asking if he was a bulldog and commenting on how pretty he was.
Here Max has met up with another dog in Pet Smart. Max was precious. The other dog barked at him and Max wrapped himself around the back of my legs and stuck his little head out. So sweet!!!

Rather than make another 4-hour trek in the car home we headed over to St. Simons Island (one of our VERY favorite places, a little bit of heaven on earth) and stayed at my in-law's condo. Thankfully they were back here at home because I don't think my MIL would have liked having a dog in the condo. Shhh!!

Saturday morning we just had to take him to the beach before we headed home.

Max meeting up with a new friend

Don't you just love this face?