New Blog, Job and Dog

Hello World. Actually, I do not want to assume that the whole world will read my blog, because let’s be honest that will not happen. I have been thinking for a while about starting a blog but today I decided to implement it.

I have some exciting news to share, for those of you who do not know I started my dream job on June 1. In May, my step dad Mark, told me about a job opening for a sports reporter at The Seminole Producer. www.seminoleproducer.com The Seminole Producer is the county paper for Seminole County. My new job here is for sports writing and photography. I am so excited. I have 10 county high school to cover and we have one community college. I am glad to be working at a small paper because it allows me to do a little bit of everything. I get to find and write my own stories and take pictures. I lay out the pages and write cutlines for the photos. I am looking forward to meeting all the county sports people. Right now in the summer there is not that much going on but dring the high school sports season I’m sure I will be much busier than I am now.

I am moving to Seminole, Okla. I found a house last week and have started moving in already. I looked at many places and settled on a small two bedroom place three blocks from the office. I have awesome landlords which is hard to come by no matter where you live.

Front of house

This is my new house.The house has a small front yard, a small back yard, and a wooden deck. One perk to the house is that I am not but a block from Magnolia Park which right now consists of a walking trail that goes around a pond in Seminole. This will be great for the new dog I will tell you about later.  The park connects to the municipal park and there are plans in place to build a wellness center out on the far end of the trail. The municipal park consists of baseball fields, a swimming pool, a golf course, basketball courts, tennis courts, and boom town which is a playground.  My only other hope is that they add a dog park!  The color scheme inside the house is tan so it will be easy to work with. One bedroom is this tan color and the other is green.  Not a dark green but not a neon green either, kind of a darker lime color. I love the house and I will try and post more pictures later.

Now that new dog I told you about earlier, her name is Trek. When I tell most people they look at me oddly and repeat it back to me saying “you said her name is track” so when I tell people her name I usually have to say, “her name is Trek, like the verb or ‘to trek’.” Then most people catch on. Trek is an eight month old half shepherd, half lab. She is all black and when you see her you see mostly lab. She has lab ears and lab coloring but she has a shepherd nose and shepherd fur.

Trek playing in the yard

Trek playing outsideThe story of how I got Trek was purely luck and good timing. I had been looking for a dog for about a month. Every night I would sit on the couch and look for a dog. I had originally wanted some type of dog that I could take on runs. I looked at many pure bread dogs from shepherds, labs, boxers, great danes and many other breeds that I had heard made good running partners. Then I had a change of heart and decided I want to get a rescue dog, maybe one from the pound. Well if you know anything about me you know that I can not go to the rescue and pick out a dog because I would come home with ten. While I was browsing the different websites for dogs from the pound I found some different dog rescues for specific breeds. I looked at one lab rescue and fell in love with an adorable chocolate lab named Wrigley. I applied for Wrigley, a 2 year old, female lab but was denied because David has a dog that is not fixed and they will not adopt out rescue dogs to homes that have “unaltered” dogs. This is something I do not understand because rescue dogs are fixed and so it is not like they could have puppies or anything. After this I got a little discouraged and started looking in the paper for dogs I called on a few dogs of different breeds but to no avail, I was still dog less. One night, after I had somewhat given up hope, I was on facebook and saw that one of my friends posted that there was a half shepherd half lab looking for a good home. I immediately messaged him and told him I was interested in the dog. He apparently had posted that for a friend so he sent my message on to her. She responded and told me that her and her husband had been at petsmart one day and there was a man sitting out front with these puppies giving them away. They, much like I would have, picked out a dog an took it home. About seven months later, which was May, they were expecting their first baby and they felt that they needed to spend their time focusing on the new member of thier family that would soon arrive. I came and picked up Trek a few days later and the rest is history.

I have only had her for a little over a month but she is great. She was not crate trained when I got her but David and I both thought that this was important for her to learn especially since David’s dog Mason is crate trained. She is very smart and caught on to the concept very quickly. She loves to play fetch and also she loves to play with Mason. Mason is an old english bulldog. You can read about them here: http://dogbreedinfo.com/oldeenglishbulldogge.htm

Mason posing for a picture about two months ago.

Trek and Mason are quitre the rowdy pair and I am sure they will miss each other when I get all moved in to my house in Seminole. David was awesome when I got Trek and he purchased me a crate and took her to her first vet visit as my birthday present.

In all, May and June were eventful months. I put together an application for this job, interviewed, got Trek, got the job, looked for a rent house that accepted pets, commuted to work daily until I found one, and now I am just trying to get settled into my new life. Hopefully I will be settled by the end of July just in time for high school sports to start.