The time has finally arrived, we are bringing home a new puppy in just a few weeks.
Kevin and I bought two puppies when we got married. We bought a brother and sister Golden Retrievers and had them for about two weeks when we realized we definitely were in over our heads. Long story short, my parents ended up with the female, Zoe. Zoe and Griffin are the best of friends. That was 10.5 years ago.
We’ve wanted to get a puppy for a few years now– overlap between dogs is a good thing, right? But two years ago a very old female golden found her way into my Facebook feed. She was 14 years old and her owner was moving across the country and couldn’t take her with. (This ended up being total B.S. but nonetheless, here we were.) Rosie lived with us for 1.5 years, one year longer than we thought. It was a bittersweet day when she had to go to Heaven, but if you met her, you’d understand how smelly and uncared for she was by the time we got her.
Then we built a house and had to grass… but now… now we have grass and a great backyard for a puppy. In March, friends of ours bought a puppy from a breeder nearby. After meeting this puppy we knew that this was it! The breeder has dark red field goldens, just like our current dog. I put down a deposit and became second in line for a female.
Today the pups are almost 6 weeks old and it was time to choose one. The kids were so excited they hardly slept last night. They have never had the chance to sit in a cage full of rambunctious puppies before– it was heavenly! We had so many to choose from it was hard to pick just one. You can see their faces in the photo, permanent smiles plastered on. But somehow, we narrowed it down to one. The name is still undecided but will most likely be Poppy or Tilli.
The kids have lots of learning and training to go through but this will be such a fun year. I was so nostalgic about picking out a dog. I remember as a kid, my parents surprised my brother and me by pulling up to a farm, letting us out of the car, and telling us to pick a puppy. Her name was Goldie and she lived a long and happy life with us. So here I am as an adult doing the same thing with my family. Buying the kids a puppy and watching their eyes light up like fireworks.
Erika LaPean 