Stella Maude

Well, so much for my goal to blog monthly. This counts though, right? It’s still February. But speaking of goals, I did actually meet one–and a pretty big one at that.

I adopted a dog!

I found Stella at the OC Humane Society earlier this month. She was super sweet and I knew she was mine. I couldn’t take her that day because I didn’t have my rental agreement that stated that I could have a pet, and they’ll only hold animals for you for an hour. Fortunately, because I was there close to closing time, the rule was they would hold her for me up to an hour after opening the next day. I was able to get my rental agreement that night, and left work for a few hours to go get her the next day. My sister had been visiting, and had planned on leaving that same day, but extended her stay by a day so that she could hang with Stella while I went back to work.

Her name is Stella because I wanted a name that was nature- or space-related, and Stella means “star” in Latin. Plus, it’s the name of both beer and wine that I enjoy, so there’s that too.

Her middle name is Maude (pronounced “mod”) for a few reasons. I loved watching Anne of Green Gables growing up, and the author of the books was named Lucy Maud Montgomery. In the series, Anne is insistent that her name be spelled with an E–“Anne with an E.” So, inspired by Lucy Maud and Anne, I gave Stella the middle name Maude. Maud is also a common name in The Netherlands, and we all know how obsessed I am with the Dutch.

She’s really great, but it hasn’t all been a magical time. Stella suffers from separation anxiety when left alone, which then gives me separation anxiety. I hate having to leave her during the day. She’s made some improvements these past few weeks, though, so my hope is that eventually she’ll get used to it and be OK with being alone. She also gets super excited when she sees other dogs (or any animal, really) while out on our walks, so I’m trying to teach her impulse control so that she doesn’t bark, lunge, or cry when she sees a creature she’d like to befriend, but that progress has been a little slower.

Being a dog-mom is hard. Haha, what a funny sentence. Good thing I don’t have human children. But it’s great, too. If you want to follow Stella on her adventures, you can follow her Instagram account (yes, I made my dog an Instagram) @stellamaudedog.