On September 16th of last year, we lost our beloved Golden Retriever, Samson.  Just a few months prior he had been diagnosed with lymphoma and given only a short time to live.  Samson was only 7 years old and our hearts were broken when we found out our time with him would be cut short.  We grieved his illness and the thought of losing him.  Some days were unbearable.

As his illness progressed his ability to control his bladder, bowels and behavior regressed.  His care turned to 24 hours/day and we had many middle-of-the-night clean ups.  If you know anything about Golden Retrievers you know that they exist to love and please their family.  While this stage of his illness was difficult on all of us, it was more difficult on him.  We knew he felt like he was disappointing us, but we just wanted to love him as long as we could without making him suffer.

We prayed we would know when his time here was done and that we wouldn’t hold on too long.

The morning of September 16th, he let us know very clearly that his time with us had come to an end.

Our hearts broke all over again.

It has been only 4 months since he left us, but the void is large.  Even our little Stevie Nicks has felt his absence.  She, too, has been sad without her ever-present playmate and often just sleeps the day away.

While our handsome boy could never be replaced and he will never be forgotten, our need to fill that void has become overwhelming.

Reese started looking for puppies before Christmas and we told her we weren’t ready.  In fact, we said we were NEVER getting another dog while simultaneously entertaining the idea.  About that same time, our girls brought their sweet Ella home for Christmas.  Ella is a Springer Spaniel/Poodle mix and she fit into our family seamlessly.  It wasn’t hard to imagine having another dog in the house.  She was only here for a week, but we felt our hearts soften just a bit while she was here.

All I can say is that we miss our boy and before we even realized what was happening we were in a full-on puppy search.

Puppy search actually seems like an understatement.  We began researching puppy breeds, breeders and available puppies like our life depended on it.  About three weeks ago, we decided that an Australian Labradoodle would be the perfect fit for our family. Once that decision was made our research moved into hyper-speed.

In a matter of weeks, Reese and I became like junkies looking for our favorite drug.  We began desperately interviewing breeders, filling out applications, making phone calls, and sending emails inquiring about these precious furballs.

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, I daresay, Andy, Reese and myself moved from researching puppies to NEEDING a puppy.  I don’t know exactly how or when it happened, but we couldn’t stop.

WE NEEDED A PUPPY!

Last week, I had filled out so many applications that I had five breeders calling me and one even sent me an invoice for a deposit!  I couldn’t sleep because I didn’t know which puppy was right for our family.  Did we want a small or medium-sized dog?  What color did we want?  Did we want spots?  Which breeder did we like best?

In the end, the decision was made because one breeder was able to check all of our boxes.  She provided everything we were looking for in a breeder and her puppies were the perfect fit.

After many interviews and weeks of research, we had made a decision. We are adopting a sweet, 8-week-old puppy.  We haven’t named this precious boy yet, but we can’t wait to bring him home later this week.

We know it’s a puppy and within hours I am sure we will be wondering what we were thinking as we begin the training process, but with the work, comes all the love that puppies bring and hopefully, a little healing as well.