Jazz's First Days with Us

A while back our friend River tagged us to tell about our first days with our humans so finally we have got it together! This blog was started when Dixie first joined our family so we already have a record of Dixie's first days with us. What follows is the story of how Jazz came to be part of the family.

In September 2003 I came home from work one day to find my two little hamsters dead! The people next door had painted their apartment and our house was filled with fumes so I'm assuming thats what killed them. I was very sad and rang Shin in the middle of a business meeting to tell him the sad news. He told me to meet him at a near by station for dinner but from the station we took a taxi and were dropped in front of a pet shop! We went in just to look at hamsters and ended up getting back in a taxi home with a dog!! How irresponsible! Pet shops here in Japan are pitiful places. We started looking in the tiny glass boxes each with one poor little dog in it when we spied a little beagle in the bottom most corner box with a huge discount sticker on the glass. She was getting "too old" to keep and the pet shop was hoping that by reducing her price she would be sold soon. Having had a beagle at home in Oz for 14 years at the time I felt extra sorry for this little beagle puppy. I had read some disturbing stories by some dog rescue group here about how puppies that are not sold by 5 months or so are euthanised or sent to science labs for testing, of which beagles were a likely choice for the latter! Shin asked if I could hold the puppy but when I put it back it started to whimper. It was a very emotional moment and a moment when Shin completely lost his mind and said lets buy her and save her! At the time we lived in a no pets apartment and although we had been talking about getting a dog for a long time we didn't have anything ready for a new puppy. We bought everything right then and there and got to take the stinking little puppy home in a cardboard carry box. We had to wash her as soon as she got home! It was a tough beginning with Jazz as she had been in such a small space for so much of her little life, sleeping, peeing, pooping and eating all in the same spot! It took her a long time to realise that there were different places for all these things. We wanted to give her a name that began with J because my beagle in Oz was called Jackson so we started searching J names and came across Jazz which was the perfect choice seeing as we both like Jazz music. When Dixie came along we decided to continue with the music theme and came up with Dixie and Gypsy and as you know we went with Dixie. Jazz and Dixie have turned out to be such wonderful loving and friendly dogs who we are lucky to share our lives with.