The following were on my list to get done this fall:
- Take a trip to New England to see the autumn leaves and to visit with friends and family.
- Get a puppy.
I began my search for a puppy before we left on vacation, but thought it would take at least a month after we got home to find the perfect fit. Well, that was not the case. On my husband's first day home, he looked at ads in the newspaper for golden retrieve pups. He was just doing the preliminary research so we could get serious about finding our new pet. It seems that we didn't need to search long. The very first litter of golden retriever pups that we went to visit had the one that stole our hearts. (Of course, that was easy. We love golden retrievers, and who doesn't love a puppy?)
The nice family who owned our new pup's mom had named the one we picked out Titan. I loved him for his combination of spunk, independence, and sweetness. He seemed to stand out in the litter of ten. He won my heart, but I walked away for a few hours to think about it. Ok, the truth is I had to go directly to the bank to take out the cash to purchase my new little bundle of love. We also had to go to the pet store to buy a kennel, toys, food, treats, or in other words, to begin to make sure our puppy had everything he might need to be happy.
We also needed to think about naming our addition to the family. Boston was the first name that popped into my mind. We had just returned from our visit to that wonderful city. The breeders were originally from Boston. Boston seemed to be the perfect name for our third golden retriever.
We were heartbroken when we had to put our dear 11 year old Buster down due to a cancer we didn't even know he had just three days after the death of Julie in 2010. (You can read about Buster here.) We missed our dear companion so much for so long, but both of us knew we just weren't ready to get another dog. We had agreed that Fall 2011 would be a good time to start looking for a dog.
It didn't take us long. Boston won us over the minute we saw him. Now, we are training a new puppy. What were we thinking? We are spending a lot of time in the yard, a place he already prefers to be, trying to housebreak him. He has earned an "A" from me in that department. He is doing nicely. At night, we are enduring the first few nights of kennel training. He slept through the night last night.
I forgot how much time a puppy takes, but it is all worth it. I really don't know how I made it so long without a dog in the house. We needed new life in this place. We needed something to look after, to train, to love, to watch grow. It is hard to be sad with a puppy in the house. "There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face." ~Ben Williams
* My daughter Keicha also added two new puppies to her household recently. I knew as soon as I saw pictures of her beautiful Sophie, that I too would soon succumb to "puppy love." You can read about her new addition here.
