They beat Miz/Maryse, John/Nikki, and Daniel/Brie to advance in this "tournament."

Then again, it's just a Facebook poll.

But still!

LONG UPDATE! NOW WITH CORGI!

That right there is the face of the man I love holding a puppy that he's been wanting to own for over a decade.

Before Vince and I moved into our house and we were still in the early stages of house shopping, Vince did some research and looked into Corgi breeders. We went to a Corgi meetup last year and asked some of the owners for recommendations. He settled with Zion Corgis, located somewhere around Arizona. He filled out an online form and put a down payment to get on the waiting list around August. We were expecting to wait a little longer than the rest because we specified that we wanted a male Corgi, and the litter doesn't always get a lot of male puppies either.

Last week, Vince got an update from the breeder, Lindsey, asking if we wanted to get a male Corgi. The catch is that this Corgi is a little bit more expensive because she originally kept him to be a show dog. However, her other friends deemed him not show ready (I'll get to that in a bit) and she sadly had to release him for the waiting list. Vince and I talked about it and agreed to take the puppy plunge and let her know that we'd be driving over on Saturday morning to pick him up.

It was our first time ever to drive to Arizona and the drive was absolutely boring. There just wasn't a lot of interesting things to see along the way since we're just driving to another desert. Probably the only exciting thing was seeing a motorcyclist's getting flat tire as he was getting off a freeway exit and pulling into a gas station. And the roads had a lot of potholes that were badly covered up. This puppy was our sole reason to endure this trip. Also, seeing a bunch of Corgis running around at a ranch sounds fun too.

We arrived at Lindsey's place, which was huge. We saw she had a lot of crates in the living room with some adult Corgis just chilling in there. One of them just won a show before we arrived. She also had 2 cats, one of them being one of those hairless Mr. Bigglesworth breed, and she had kittens! They're actually pretty cute sans fur! Lindsey then led us to the puppy den that had 2 separate pens. One is for the puppies she's keeping and the other pen is for the puppies she was giving away. She picked up one big puppy and introduced us to Bullseye (her litter was named after Toy Story characters). Vince and I fell instantly in love with him.

She explained to us why she had to give up Bullseye. He didn't stand up straight like the other puppies. His elbows stick out and he walks around like a bulldog. She assured us it's not going to affect him as he gets older and he'll grow out of it. As a puppy being groomed to be a show dog, it's not acceptable. Plus, he had these stray white strands of fur on his mostly black body, and that was another no-no. She said Bullseye was her favorite so she was really sad about giving him up. We paid in cash and she gave us his folder of his information, like his shots and his certificate of pedigree (his parents are champs). She even bought us a crate, an exercise pen, and a puppy bed that we paid extra for, which saves us a trip). I drove the car on the way back so that Vince can comfort Gustaff during the long, now not-so-boring trip back to Vegas.

Vince told his parents about Gustaff and they wanted us to come over. We stopped by at Petco and signed up for a membership here, thanks to Lindsey giving us a Petco coupon book, and bought more things for him. We had to go back home and give him some food and water before we got ready to leave again. We grabbed some food from El Pollo Loco and then drove to his parent's place. His parents love him too! They couldn't stop laughing at how he looked like a stuffed toy. Freddie didn't really care for him at first but after a while they got to to formally introduce each other and sniff each other's butts, with Freddie nearly sitting on Gustaff. After that, we headed back home to play with him some more and set up his crate and pen in one of the spare rooms. Vince's plan is to not let the cats see Gustaff for a while. We want to introduce him slowly and get them used to each other, especially when both of us are not home during the day.

Our first weekend was a bit tiring now that we have a puppy to schedule around. This means Vince and I will be taking lunch breaks to go home and check on Gustaff mid-day to change his sheets and play with him. We have to wake up and sleep early, and the cats know something's up. Unfortunately, Gustaff's training with Lindsey is quickly wearing off so we'll have retrain him in the basic stuff like learning to use the puppy pads, getting used to being in a crate, and being more diligent with clicker training.

Oh! I should probably explain the choice for his name. His full show name (just for kicks) is Gustaff Growlithe Gallifrey the Third. We have seriously planned this name for like 2-3 years. His name is a combination of our nerdy passions:

• "Gustaff" is named after Tron Bonne's robot from Mega Man
• "Growlithe" is from Pokemon
• "Gallifrey" is from Doctor Who
• "the Third" is from Lupin The Third

Even better was seeing the names of his family lineage from the certificate of pedigree. The certificate lists his parents, grandparents, and great grandparents, etc. by their full registration names. Vince told me he spotted "Triple H" somewhere and he was right; from both sides of his family, he had great, great grandparents named "Triple H" followed by a baseball reference. Anyways, we love him so much and we hope we can raise him to be a good pupper.