Ollivander

After Luna's passing the kids immediately began to beg for a new pet.  It was probably my fault as I had always told them that 3 pets were the maximum at our house.  We briefly talked about another cat, but Fleur is a little bit litter box picky and we didn't want to rock the boat with her.  Joshua has had two mini dachshunds in the past, one that became family to me too when we got married.  He's been commenting that he'd really like another mini dachshund if we ever got another dog, and dropping hints every so often.  Now I loved Frankie (the last mini dachshund) but she really could be high strung, especially with the barking.  Not sure if it was a breed thing or just the training of two high school boys.  So I started to research dachshunds to see if there were differences in temperament, etc. that we should be aware of.  According to numerous websites and "experts" long haired mini dachshunds are supposed to be calmer than the short haired dachshunds (and on a side note the long haired ones aren't supposed to really shed at all).  Then we discovered the English Cream Dachshunds.  They are supposed to be calmer than the reds or black dachshunds.  We also liked that they are more unique and not often seen.  We had been wanting a dog that was different in appearance from the previous dachshunds too.  So I continued to research and found a breeder that shows her dogs about an hour and a half away from us.  She had a new litter of puppies that the mom was an English Cream Mini Dachshund, and two of the pups were "shaded" English Cream.  The shaded English creams have a tiny bit of black shading on their ears and tail when full grown.  But hey this is probably all a lot more information than you wanted to know.  Anyway, we decided on the little boy long haired shaded english cream mini dachshund.  Quite a mouthful huh.  We had to wait a couple of weeks until he was old enough to come home, but he's been home with us for a week and a half now and we are loving having him as part of our family. 
We named him Ollivander, but just call him Vander.  How did we get that name?  It's a minor Harry Potter character name, and we unknowingly had named both of our cats with minor Harry Potter character names so decided to continue the trend.  
Here are a few pictures of Vander.  He'll get lighter in color as he gets older until he is completely cream except for bits on his ears and tail.  His hair will also get longer.

Yes, Mishka is quite a bit bigger than Vander, but Vander adores him and follows him everywhere.  Mishka has a lot of patience with him.  Fleur isn't playful with him, but she doesn't seem to mind having Vander around.  This is a relief as she really dislikes Mishka and will case Mishka out of her area if he dares to enter it.
The kids (ours and the whole neighborhood) are loving having Vander around so he is never short on playmates.  I'll post more pictures as he gets bigger.