our first baby.

In June (June 6th, to be exact) of this year we will have had Gus for 6 years! I can't believe he's been a part of our family for that long. Gus was our first baby. We picked him out of 5 male pug puppies and he's been one-of-a-kind ever since that first super hot day he came home with us.

Our first picture of Gus as a puppy.

In August, it will have been 3 years since we adopted Lily from another family. We had high hopes that Gus and Lily would be best friends, but really, Gus just tolerates Lily. Not exactly what we had in mind, but we've been so happy to have 2 precious pugs to come home to, cheer us up and make us laugh!

Since both dogs have been a part of our family for so long, and because we consider them to be our babies, I'm so unsure of how they'll react to the baby when we bring him/her home. In my opinion, Lily won't be as affected by the new addition as Gus will be. 

Lily is a go-with-the-flow kind of dog. She's pretty much always happy and kind of clueless to most everything going on around her. 

Gus is the complete opposite. He's always been the alpha dog but he's definitely noticed that things are changing around here. Starting back in October when his eye was poked, he started having really bad skin issues -- to the point that he would chew on his paw or arm until it bled! And, I started to realize about a month ago that those skin issues were probably triggered by the stress of his eye, but they have continued because he's stressed that things are changing around the house.

 Gus hated this life jacket, but he loves the water and sinks like a rock in the pool.

Not only do I smell different than I used to (thank you hormones), but we moved their crates to another room and the room that they used to live in was completely cleaned out and looks totally different than it ever has. What I think really set him over the edge, though, is that we had to board both dogs for 4 days when we went to Houston. When we picked them up from the vet, Gus was obviously stressed. He had diarrhea and what we thought were hives all over. He was super needy and clingy.

Both J and I have been looking into the best way to prepare our dogs for the baby, and we've found some good advice. But, overall, I'm very nervous how Gus is going to react and how his health will be when the baby actually comes home. 

In the mean time, we continue to tell him that we'll continue to love him and that he's going to be a great big brother (please, feel free to snicker that we're telling our dog these things, but seriously, we have to try something!), but I guess in a little over a month, we'll find out how he does! 

I love this picture of Gus -- our first fur baby!