Yesterday was a special day for me as Fender came into my life. He’s about 25lb and, best as I can tell, a purebred smooth haired Fox Terrier. (Update: Now that I have his records, I know he’s a Rat Terrier mix.)

I became aware of Fender on Thursday evening at ATX Twestival when my friend Blair (@austindirtydog) informed me of a rescue situation. You can read the really jacked up story about how a woman pretended to “find” Fender and turn him over to my friend Selene at Whole Foods. Further investigation revealed that this woman did not find Fender, but that in fact, was the owner of Fender.

Regardless, (as I brush away white Fender hair that has collected on my keyboard), Selene took Fender in and promised to find a good home for him. I got to meet him on Saturday when I brought my roommate (who needed to approve of the adoption) and my friend Kat (@RealAustin) and her fur kid Bear, a Boston Terrier, to Zilker Park to meet Fender.

I received word yesterday that Fender could not wait to be done with his traumatic week and find a new home with me.

He has begun settling in really well. I feel like he may have been abused because he has some skittishness, especially around men and sudden movements. But he’s so mild mannered and comfortable already. He seems to have some skittishness about parts of the apartment. For instance, he is really hesitant to go through the hallway to get to my room, but once he’s in my room he’s fine and won’t move. He slept all night with me and didn’t wake me up.

I remember when my ex and I had our son, Nicole made sure he understood that when Daddy was asleep, don’t wake him up. Devin understood this very early on. I’m not fun when I’m woke up. Fender seems to already understand this and peacefully waited for me to wake up this morning.

There’s still a lot I have to do and get at the pet store. I’ll have to experiment with food. He doesn’t seem to like the dry stuff but the raw meat kinds of food, he’s totally into. We’ll have to figure out how to make that scale economically. :-)

Of course, this means lifestyle changes for me as well. More time will be spent at home and I’ll have to plan for quick trips home every night, if I plan to be out late. There will be a lot more walking and maybe running. He’s got short legs so I don’t know how he’ll do running while I’m riding on my bike. He’s a hunter so he wants to stop and sniff out every little thing he gets a scent of. Heh.

I’m excited to be a daddy again, even if it isn’t quite the same as having a little boy.