Living Pretty With Your Pets: A Home Full Of Color

{Update: Shavonda changed her blog name to SG Style}

Pet Love Friday today! And today I have a another blogger who is very, very dear to my heart. I virtually met her a long time ago on Pinterest. Yes, it can happen, it does happen! Something about her just stuck with me because she happens to be a very special person. I actually got to meet at Haven and I’m so glad we did. I wish we’d live closer because I know we would have a great time hanging out.

Meet my friend Shavonda of “A Home Full Of Color“:

Hi Everyone! My name is Shavonda and I blog over at A Home Full Of Color. Im happy to be here today. I absolutely ADORE Julia, so when she asked if I would come on and talk a bit about our four legged family member I just couldn’t say no. Allow me to introduce you to our gentle soon-to-be-giant, Callie.

Callie is our 5 month old Great Dane puppy. Yup, you heard right….Great Dane! Her markings are deceiving and we got a whole lotta “is that a Dalmation?” Nope, not a Dalmation. She’s a blue harlequin. Traditional harlequins are black and white like her dad, but her mom is full blue (grey), so she got dads markings in moms color. She’s unique and sweet as pie, and we just love her. Now lets back track a bit at start from the beginning. Why a Dane? Because my wife is obsessed with the breed. Plain and simple. We knew we wanted to welcome a large dog into our family for over 2 years so we did lots and lots of research and narrowed down the list. Although Danes are known to have several medical issues, a relatively short life span, and are MASSIVE, we just couldn’t see ourselves with anything else. Oh and did I mention we decided on a Dane after downsizing into a smaller house! Who does that!? We do apparently. #gluttonsforcraziness While we are usually very pro adoption, we really wanted to raise her from a puppy, (especially since they require lots of special attention) so we found a highly reputable breeder in Southern California where Naomi is from, and in August we brought her home when she was 10 weeks old. The minute we saw her we were completely smitten.

If you aren’t familiar with the breed, they grow faaaaaaast! In the three months since bringing her home, shes already tripled in size! Because of this she pretty much sleeps all the time. Danes as a breed aren’t super active dogs, especially so as puppies. Their bones don’t start to harden until after they turn one, so in order to prevent injuries they shouldn’t partake in high intensity play. They also shouldnt get puppy food, only adult and its gotta be low protein and low fat. Needless to say she spends most of her time like this:

When shes not asleep she’s either at our feet, or trying to be in our lap! Shes already about 50 lbs and she’ll double that weight by the time she turns 1, so that whole lap dog thing isn’t really gonna work out in her favor. She loves to ride in the car, and she’s my son’s constant backseat buddy.

Since she’s also the best project sidekick!

When she’s not sleeping, of course!

Having her in our lives has been quite an adventure and we love seeing her grow and learn every day. I’d love to come back after she turns one so share more of our experience with her. Im sure by then she will be doing more than sleeping all day.. But then again, maybe not! Thank you so much for having us Julia. Have a great weekend everyone! Xo-Shavonda