How has it been one year already?!? We’ve had our Saylor girl for one year! February 17th actually marked her “Gotcha Day”, but it took me awhile to go through these photos. As you can imagine I take a lot of pictures. But I feel like a bad dog mom because we weren’t even with her on birthday on December 8th so we’re having a little party for her this weekend with our nieces.

February 17th, 2024 – Gotcha Day and February 17th, 2025 – one year later when we traveling home from Pittsburgh.

Throughout the year I’ve been taking pictures of Saylor in front of the same sign to see her grow. It’s definitely a lot easier to get the picture now that she’s trained. I actually have a lot more pictures, but I love how these turned out.

I took a couple “one year” pictures too 🙂

The picture on the left was the picture that we initially saw of her. (Her name was Peaches at the time hahaha) We thought she’d have some brown and black in her fur, but as you can see she takes after her dad. Her dad was full Poodle and his fur is called Merle. Her mom was Yorkie and Poodle and was a tan color.

The first day, she was so tiny!

Her first bath when she fit in the sink and her first weigh in at the vet: 2.75 lbs.

I did a little “newborn session” with her. I know it’s goofy, but I love having the pictures.

So her personality!

We got ourselves a little velcro dog from the start. I didn’t mind when she was such a baby, but we’re still working with her on us leaving her.

We got her in February when it was cold and snowy, so it was so nice when spring came around and we could take her out to explore. Girl loves to be outside!

On Easter the nieces were so excited to take Saylor on an Easter egg hunt. We put some treats for her in a couple of eggs and each niece got to hide an egg and then help Saylor find it.

She started getting longer legs and a longer body and getting into more things. She loves to eat dirt and plants.

She’s loved her toys from the beginning! (That’s a stuffed animal dog bed that she uses at my parents’ house.)

Such a cutie just loving life!

Poor baby had her surgery to get fixed. Plus we added on pulling out front teeth because they weren’t falling out. And we had her back dewclaws removed because they were loose and they had almost got snagged on a couple of things. She had to wear 2 cones and a neck pillow to keep her from her back legs since she is so flexible and her legs are so long. We also had to put plastic bags on her back legs when she went outside because the incision sites couldn’t get wet. It was a rough couple weeks but she handled it the best she could. If I was her I would have gone insane, I was going crazy taking care of her.

Once Saylor was fixed then she could go to doggy daycare and boy does she love daycare! We’ve been told everyone knows Saylor because she’s the smallest but fastest and loves to play and bark. She also loves to get the staff to hold her.

She’s always the smallest, but that doesn’t stop her from playing with even the biggest dogs. I love how social she is.

Saylor got her “puppy cut” so she could get familiar with the scissors and other stuff. They just cut her face, but her little face and bow were so precious.

Not only is Saylor social and good with other dogs, she’s great with kiddos! It makes my heart so happy to see how good she is with our nieces and nephews. They pick her up, play with her, treat her like a baby, and she does so good with all of it.

Our niece and her friend dressed in all black so that they could match Saylor 🙂

She actually does really well while we work, but sometimes she just needs attention and to be held. She loves to steal my camera cleaning supplies or get in the way while I’m trying to pack my gear.

Ben bought Saylor a rain coat, but it’s not as effective when she’s fluffy. She eventually got to big for the sink and had to move to the tub for her baths. She looks so tiny in it. When she’s wet she actually reminds me of those little brown looking “poor unfortunate souls” in Ursula’s cave in Little Mermaid.

Saylor had to quickly learn to ride in the car since we take roadtrips to Pittsburgh. She loves to stick her head out the window, she would do it going 70 on the turnpike if we let her.

During our visits we also made trips to see my Grandma. She loved Saylor since she had had 2 little dogs herself. Saylor would just lay on her legs and also greet any other people in the nursing home.

I am not Saylor’s favorite person, it is in fact Ben. And Ben may deny it, but I catch the two of them together and I know he loves her.

Girl loves her beds and blankets, of course they’re pink.

Once she figured out she was big enough to jump on our couch she could also be found laying on the pillows on the couch. Not the dark gray ones that hide dirt, but the white ones that I didn’t want her on.

That’s not all, we have a bench at the end of our bed and we keep pillows on it. She has learned how to parkour her way onto our bed. I guess we could remove the pillows, but we’ve put a blanket on our bed that she lays on. Plus I love snuggling her in bed before we put her in her crate for the night.

In general she prefers to snuggle in the evenings. But if you have a blanket and are taking a nap she’ll be the best snuggle bug.

Can I come with you?

Her weight didn’t register on our scale so we started attaching our luggage scale to her harness to weigh her lol. She’s officially up to 5 pounds! I know she’ll gain weight as she gets older, but we were thinking we were getting a 7-8 pound dog.

The Worst Advice We Got: Our groomer said to wait until she was 6 months to get her fully groomed. I knew she was bad and matted, but when I look back on these pictures she looks like no one loves her. We call her our little Ewok in these pictures. I thought we needed to get her a new harness because her original one wasn’t fitting.

And this is what she looked like when I went to pick her up. I was like who is this dog, it’s not my Saylor. They had to cut so close to her skin because she was so matted. I wanted to cry. She now goes every 2 -2.5 months to be groomed. We still go to the same groomer and I like how she cuts her, I just will never forget how wrong that piece of advice was.

And guess what, we didn’t need a new harness. It was actually big on her again.

I found the cutest pink life vest so I could take her kayaking. She actually did really well until I turned the boat around and showed her how far out she was. She did try swimming at my parents’ pool and she can swim, but does not like the water. Unfortunately she’s so skinny that she can slip right through the fence around the pool so now she will be wearing her life vest there as well so she can’t get loose into the yard.

I had this chair with pillows and a blanket in my office and one day Ben put the pillows under the blanket and it became her perch. It looks out over where we park so she uses it to see when we leave and come back. She threw up on the blanket and the fur was ruined when we washed it so it is officially now her blanket. She spends most days on it while I work in the office.

Our little Nittany Lion fan! She fits into the t-shirt Sophie used to wear, but Ben also got her a jersey that is just the cutest.

Thank goodness she doesn’t mind being dressed up! For Halloween she was a sailor and we carved an anchor in a pumpkin.

She also had a couple different Christmas looks. Ben got her the Mrs. Claus dress on the right and surprised me with it on Christmas morning.

We also had to get her a vest to wear in the snow because she loves to be outside, but she shakes from being cold. Sometimes we even have to layer a sweater underneath it when it’s really cold. But she really doesn’t mind being dressed up.

Just a couple places she shouldn’t be. Her “trick” is to jump on the coffee table, especially if there’s food. But we have glass on it so then it’s slippery and she can’t get off.

Saylor loved the Christmas tree! She would lay under it or on my lap while I did my devotions in the morning with the lights on. We eventually had to put a fence around it because she wanted to eat the plastic tree and presents.

Can you find Saylor? She made it into the Adams’ family Christmas picture this year!

Our 2024 Christmas picture 🙂

If you made it this far, thank you for reading and looking at the pictures. I really just wanted to have a place to put Saylor’s first year because I know she’ll change so much as she gets older. She’s still such a puppy and so playful. But it’s nice to have her trained. We still can’t leave her alone because she cries and we live in an apartment. But we’re working on it and hopefully we’ll get a house soon so we don’t have to worry about her bothering our neighbors. She’s still precious though 🙂

Happy 1 year gotcha day, Saylor!