In just over 24 hours I will be bringing home my own puppy for the first time. I can focus on little else, of course, especially having seen her in person a few days ago. Through a great stroke of luck, this little Boxer is coming to my husband and I as a gift from a wonderful breeder here in New Jersey. She’s white, so she’s not show quality, but I don’t get the sense that she knows what color she is at all. She’s just a gorgeous little bunny right now, but she’ll be a Boxer just the same, color notwithstanding.

Since she’s pigment-challenged and sort of considered second-best, we thought we’d call her Beta. My husband is a software developer, so words like that float around our house pretty often. In his line of work, “beta” is the first version of a software program, before it’s been fully tested and formally released. This is our first dog together, so she’s sort of our “beta.”

As one of my co-workers keeps telling me, this is going to be “a life-changer” for me, but I am so looking forward to that. Yes, having a dog will mean we won’t be able to decide to go away for a weekend at the drop of a hat and will have to do more coordinating to make sure someone is home to take her out and feed her, but having grown up with wonderful dogs, I know the trade-off is weighted far heavier on the positive side.

So wish me luck with this grand adventure!