It's a Girl!

My boys have been begging me to get them a dog ever since Aaron passed away.  Jalen became really persistent about six months ago and kept telling me how much a dog would help him.  The debate about whether we should get a dog has gone on and on.

I'm not an animal person at all and have been totally against getting a dog.  I was mostly worried that the novelty would wear off for the boys, and then I would be caring for the dog all the time on my own.    Since moving to our new house, things have started to settle down a bit for me and I feel on top of things a lot more as I was feeling really stressed living in our old house with so many memories of Aaron and Noah there, which just made me feel so sad.   I then started to consider that getting a dog may be good for the boys and also for myself, and started to look up information about different breeds of dogs just out of curiosity.

When we went to stay with my brother Christian in Sydney recently Harri absolutely fell in love with his labrador puppy Tess.  He was devastated when we had to leave her and has been begging me since to get him a dog for his birthday which is in September.  He would crack me up as he would send me funny messages from his iPod when I was out asking me to go to the pet shop to buy a dog.

After getting back from Sydney  I really started to think about getting a dog seriously.  I saw how happy the boys were when they were spending time with Tess in Sydney and knew that even though a dog may be a bit of work and we would obviously have expenses associated with having a dog, I could see it would (hopefully) be worth it all to have another member in our family who could bring us lots of joy.

When looking at breeds of dogs I kept going back to the labradoodle.  I did a lot of investigating and decided it was time to seriously take a look at them.  I told our friend Alison that I was thinking about getting one and asked her if she wanted to come and look at them with me, at the Tasmanian Labradoodles breeding facility.   

The owner Paul was really lovely and spent about an hour with us showing us around and showing us all the different dogs. We were very impressed.  They look after their dogs so well and he knew all of the parents names, even though there were so many of them.

He showed us where the smallest puppies were kept while they were still with their mothers and showed us some puppies that had just been born before we got there. They were so tiny and cute.

 Kobe was with us and had no clue we were looking to buy a puppy for us as we kept telling him Alison was thinking about getting one.  He kept saying 'all of these puppies are so cute Mum! We should get one!'. 

I saw a few older puppies on the website that had been discounted and were interested in having a look at them.  At first I was thinking that I would like a cream girl, but when we got there I actually loved the look of a beautiful older brown girl.   As soon as I saw her I could tell that she was much more placid than a lot of the other puppies and knew straight away that she was the one I wanted.  I organised with the owner which day I would come back to pick her up and Kobe still had no idea that we had just bought a puppy!   All week I was busting to tell the boys that we would be getting a dog, but I wanted to surprise them and I had to wait till I got back from Sydney to get her.

It was strange seeing on their website that they had updated their page and had put my name next to the puppy I had chosen. This photo was taken when she was six weeks old, but she is now five months old. 

Yesterday they emailed me an updated photo of our puppy and I was so excited that I was tempted to tell the boys last night. I just couldn't wait to see their reaction when they realised we would be getting a dog.  All week I had been sneaking out buying different things for her and hiding them in the garage.  I had definitely come around from never wanting a dog!

Last night I told the boys that I had to drop off Alison at a friend's house after school today as she had to leave her car in town for her sister.  I told them it was out of town a little way, so I wanted them all to come with me for a drive, rather than staying home.  Both Harri and Jay were complaining as they wanted to stay home, but I told them they had to come. 

Once we got to the Tasmanian Labradoodles property Kobe recognised where we were and said 'this is the labradoodle place!'.  The boys still didn't catch on and were still thinking we were dropping off Alison at 'her friend's house'.  When we got out of the car Alison started her camera rolling and I told the boys what was happening.  This was the result :) Kobe was worried about the dogs barking and at first he said he didn't want her, but when he realised she was quiet he decided she wasn't so bad.  He was also worried because they 'cost too much money' as that's what I kept telling him last week when he said he wanted to buy one. 

We are now the proud owners of a gorgeous five month old female labradoodle.  There was a lot of debating on the way home about what her name would be, but we finally agreed on 'Milly'.  She is beautiful and so placid and happy already.  Because she is older she has had a lot of extra training which I think is going to make settling her in so much easier. 

There are some very happy boys in our house tonight.   It's so nice to see them smile.