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.


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.

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.