A new edition has been added to the Kurtz household, our new english bulldog puppy, Turtle♥. At 9 weeks old we brought him home and I feel like we have a toddler running around the house! The first week was filled with cuddling and following him around all day to make sure he didn’t poop or pee anywhere! We were pleasantly surprised to find that he was able to sleep through the night about 10 days after we got him, bed at 9:00pm and awake at 8:00am with no accidents in the night!

Both Dan and I have busy schedules but I am able to work from home a good majority of the time if needed. I had a clothing swap party planned at the house for the next Saturday after we got him and the bags of clothes laying around the house were more chewing temptation than he could handle! I laid the clothes out one day in an attempt to organize but that was a major mistake as I spent more time keeping him from ripping the clothes apart than I did sorting! Oh well, I didn’t want to sort the clothes anyways:)adorned homes, real estate blog, interior design blog, nkba, dan kurtz, katie kurtz, katie kurtzmn, katue kurtz rowhouse showdown, rowhouse showdown, fyi network, dan kurtz, dan kurtz mn, keller williams, mn designer, mn realtor, spaces magazine, fyi network, kkurtz, mnrealestate, staging mn, dress for success, bulldog, bulldog puppy, bulldog love, english bulldog, english bulldog puppy ~If you have not ever been to a clothing swap party then I suggest you plan one! It is a great way to get your girlfriends together and the leftover clothes can be donated to an organization of your choosing, mine went to the Dress For Success organization along with the $10 donations we collected from each of the women who attended the clothing swap. Turtle went to my mom & dads for the evening, sleeping on my dads chest while he laid on the couch all night. He is such a cuddle bug.

We had originally planned on getting a small lap dog as I didn’t want a dog that shed, drooled or got bigger than the top of my knees! After years of deliberations about getting a dog, we sat at a cafe in Chicago one day this summer and walking down the street were 2 english bulldogs on a leash with their owner. They had so much character and were so mellow, their tough exterior mixed with their laid back personality was exactly what we needed. A little dog would be too active for us. So a bulldog it was!

I started researching how to choose a breeder, finding that bulldogs can have many expensive medical problems if you do not know the background of who they were bred from…a parent of a bulldog puppy who had a lot of problems is more likely to have puppies with the same issues. We eventually found a reputable breeder in the area who had a large litter available. The coloring of the puppies ran the gamut from brindle to all white to fawn. When we went to choose our puppy we thought we would come home with the traditional brown and white spotted bulldog but this guy caught my eye. Aside from almost all white, he had “smut” around his eyes, which is a black line that looks like eyeliner, and a tan spot on his right eye. A combination that made him so cute that I couldn’t resist! Plus, he matches my house perfectly, making his hair hard to spot!

We took him out in public for the first time this weekend, leash and all. A local apple orchard that we visit every fall was a good first outing for him. He seems to like little kids and chased them around the pumpkin patch. A little more practice needed with walking on a leash, but all in all he is doing well with his training! As I am writing this, he has gone silent in the other room, which either means he is getting into something he’s not supposed to or he fell asleep, time to go check.