The Tamaskan lifestyle.

[AngieH]

So; after lots of soul searching and realistically evaluating our situation, my husband and I came to the painful conclusion that our home is really too small for a Tamaskan after all...

So we are buying a bigger one!

(What, you thought we'd change our mind about getting Paka? No way!)

We close on our new place Nov 30. Paka is expected to come home the second week of January.

Now, of course, many things lead to the decision to buy a home, but contemplating a dog-friendly lifestyle was certianly the catalist leading us to explore this path.

This led me to wonder, in what ways has being a "dog person" changed the lifestyle of other people?

What are some of the lifestyle decisions you have made to accomodate your beloved fur-babies?

-Angie

[EskyTheHusky]

I like your thinking!

There is a lot of things having a dog has changed for me.
I settled on a husky when i first moved out of home as I had gotten lazy, I had read huskies become destructive if they are bored so although it seems a bit backwards I wanted to get a dog to help keep my active, or it would punish me for not excercising it enough.

Since then I now am a fully fledged crazy dog lady, i spend my time on dog forums, I have heaps of dog books, I drive all over the place for dog meet ups, events and camp down in the forest for races.

Esky and I are now on a 6 month fitness quest to be absolutely ripped by next winter

I would love another pack member though, so I could get out and about even more
Oh and I'm about to start working from home I'll get to spend a heap of time with my animals

[TerriHolt]

having dogs didn't really change anything for me because my mum had a dog before i was born and they have always been there, apart of my life.. well, apart of me and who i am really.... except with the death of a dog... i can't lose a dog and then jump into getting a new one. to me it feels like i'd be replacing the one i lost and so far i have never stuck with the same breed because of that feeling... but in the timeline i had a dog in my life everyday untill our ex guide dog, evan passed and then there was a a few years of nothingness... feeling lonely with no one to talk to (my dogs know all my deep, dark secrets ). and then i rescued my GSD, Jess. and same again for a year when she passed... the darkness of being alone... something missing, needing something that wasn't there (sounds strange to some people ). and then i got sam. it's more of a change and an adjustment to not have one...

it's actually pretty much the same story about cats too now i come to think about it

[TheNorth]

We did that too....at first we wanted just a apartment and after we knew that we get a tamaskan, we thought its better for both and maybe three dogs..to have a bigger living space and a garden.

Now we are living in a house with a very very big garden


Good luck in the new bigger house

[claireyclaire]

I guess we have definitely changed our lifestyles for our dogs! This year we bought a caravan so we could take the dogs away with us on holiday as I am not happy to put them in kennels or trust anyone else with them. However, our main consideration with the caravan was that it was big enough for 3/4 dogs, what we hadn't realised is that the caravan we bought was too heavy to be towed by either of our cars, so a new car had to be purchased to be able to tow the van and fit all the dogs in!

It's turned out to be quite costly

[JoshC]

I agree. Teresa and I are going to move to a bigger place in the next few yrs so we can get more Tams and help more with fostering

[Hawthorne]

Oh my. This seems to be a recurring theme with all of us! We also intend to move to a bigger home with more land.

[JulieSmith]

Oh my. This seems to be a recurring theme with all of us! We also intend to move to a bigger home with more land.

Warning Tams are very adictive

[HiTenshi16]

We have a doggy door to our bedroom so our fur babies may come in and out as they please while we keep everyone else out We are also trying to get a fence up (after some frustrating moments) for our 1 acre yard and hopefully after that we will get rid of our carpet Also because we do want to help out more with fostering any need be rescue Tamaskans and hopefully even be part of the rescue committee

[TeresaC]

We are well on our way to being those "crazy dog people!" We now have a dog room which is the bedroom next to ours that has kennels and crates set up including a 5' x 5' kennel. We have dog furniture and people furniture since we lost our couch to the dogs.

We have started making a list on "nice to haves" verses "must haves" for our new house in the country. Oh yeah, did I mention that we need to move:) Must have more room for more Tams! "Can't just have two"...that's what happens after "can't have just one"

Someone stop us...oh never mind!

[Blustag]

It gets worse when you start breeding and cant part with the pups

[Hawthorne]

HAHA. Lynn--we've already accepted it and plan on keeping one.