Tilda Tuesdays: Flashback to the Early Days

Hi! Welcome to the first installment of Tilda Tuesdays, where you can stop by for plenty of vizsla pictures. I thought I'd start at the beginning, with a few puppy pictures from the really early days.

Matilda was born in Brookings, South Dakota, at a breeder named "HR Vizsla." We went down to the farm once when she was just 4 weeks old to pick her out (out of a litter of about 8 puppies I think). We knew we wanted a female dog, so I think there were four to pick from.

Then we went back to Brookings again when she was 8 weeks old to bring her home for good. She was so tiny then! Vizsla puppies also have light gray/blue eyes, which eventually change to the same red/brown as their coats.

Brookings, South Dakota is over a 4 hour drive from Minneapolis, so it was a long day of driving for us, but such an exciting one!

I remember being worried that she would get nauseated on the drive, but she slept most of the way back to Minneapolis. Of course, we stopped occasionally to let her go to the bathroom.

We were so excited to have a puppy, though a little nervous too. We had never had a dog before! Of course, I read lots of books ahead of time, but it was still crazy to actually bring her home.

From all my reading, I knew that we needed to crate train her, but man, oh man..the first few nights of crate training were tough...Yes, Dustin did sleep on the floor by her, trying to comfort her and keep her from crying. It was so hard not to take her out of the kennel and cuddle her, but we had to stick with it!

After a few nights of crying, she was "sleeping through the night," and she grew to love her kennel and it was her "safe place," or her refuge when she was tired.

Matilda had stolen our hearts and our lives would never be the same!