Furry Friend Nonsense

Disclaimer: this blog will have a good bit of content about two very prominent characters in my life story. Affectionately dubbed the B’s, the girls, BohzNBarks. Our rescue pups Bohzie and Barklee.

First came Bohzie – the little cuddle bug rugrat who I adopted in 2013. I was looking for a Pug mix, and this goober named “Hannah Bell” popped up in my search of rescue dogs in Georgia as a “Chug” – a Chihuahua Pug mix. Ultimately, it turns out that she is neither of these breeds (a story for another post), but when I saw her picture my heart melted…

She was living on a farm out in Cumming, Georgia with a foster family through the Safe Harbor Animal Rescue organization. I ventured out there with my friend Steph to meet her, and there was no going back. I was in love.

I decided to give her a name with a nod to my beloved hometown of Baltimore. Our unofficial city mascot is “Natty Boh” – a quirky cartoon character associated with Baltimore’s National Bohemian beer – so she went from “Hannah Bell” to “Bohzie.”

My family was a bit apprehensive about a small dog joining the family (we had adopted medium-sized mutts when I was growing up), but they quickly embraced her as “little buddy.” Super chill and snuggly with a tooth-filled smile that never fails to crack me up.

Barklee is a recent addition to our pack, but I cannot imagine life without her.

From early on in our relationship, Ryan and I discussed that we would one day in the future like to add a bigger dog to our family. We casually perused rescue sites, but it was when his brother adopted a puppy in late December that our search became real serious, REAL fast. I woke up one morning a few days after we got word of the recent adoption, and Ryan had a puppy listing queued up for my review. Once we opened the door to the possibility, there was no going back.

Pepper popped up in our search as part of a litter dubbed the “Winnie the Pooh” puppies with the Dirt Road Doggies rescue organization. Most of the pups had names from Winnie the Pooh, but Pepper was an outlier with her black and white coloring.

We went to a PetSmart adoption event to meet the Winnie the Pooh crew of two and a half month old puppies. We were overwhelmed by all of the adorable pups in the most heartmelting way, but ultimately our heartstrings got tugged the hardest by the little black pup with the white paws and white nose named “Pepper.” We looked at eachother and knew that she would be our “Barklee” – named after Ryan’s parents beautiful golden retriever “Charlie” who Ryan affectionately called “Charles Barkley.”

We underwent the application process just before our previously scheduled vacation to the Cayman Islands. We were in the waiting stage by the time we made it to the beautiful beach, and the little pup was lingering in our minds. We were sitting on a patio sipping on adult beverages and overlooking the ocean when we got the call from her foster mother confirming that we were cleared for a home visit. We were over the moon ecstatic! I must say – it’s always a bummer to come back from a magical vacation like the one that we had. So if you can arrange to have a precious pup waiting on you to adopt it on the other side, it is the very best way to do it. We passed the home visit (Bohzie included – though she was a bit taken aback by the energetic new arrival), and she officially joined our pack on January 14th, 2020.

These girls keep us smiling through the ups and downs of life – especially when we’ve been in close quarters in our two bedroom condo during quarantine. You can follow along on their adventures on Instagram @BohzNBarks.

I can’t wait to share with you some of our favorite furry friend nonsense!

Stay nonsensical, friends.
Gee