Puppy !!! (or should I say puppies…?)

As many of you are aware, we have a guinea pig. She’s a calico-coloured, long-haired little critter who is very shy and timid. The kids like to play with her, but she’s not particularly active. I had thought we might get a male and have some babies, but over the months we’ve had her (almost two years by now) I’ve observed that she’s likely not the best pet for my active kids. So why get another one when they’ll not be played with all that often, and can’t run around freely outside and go for walks and the like?

Instead, over the past year I’ve been quietly thinking of getting a dog. Quietly, because the instant I let the kids in on my musings they’d be all over me, relentlessly… But in the last two months my thinking progressed, first, to active consideration, and second, to active looking. And third, now, to actual arrangements to buy one! Yikes!

I’ve long like Labs for their gentle natures and placid personalities – good traits in a house with active kids. But they are big dogs and do, it seems, tend to shed a fair bit. Yet all my research into breeds seemed to point towards the Lab as a good choice. A good non-shedding dog is, it seems, the poodle, which is also a very intelligent breed – both highly desirable qualities. Plus they come in smaller sizes. But I’ve never cared for the poodle look – particularly the really fancy puff haircuts, though I guess one doesn’t always have to have them clipped that way. So I started to consider a Labradoodle. The more I read about them, the more it seemed to be the right choice.

Next step was to find a breeder. There are a couple in Ontario and many more in Alberta and BC. Only a few of them breed the smallest-sized Labradoodles, which is what I wanted, and only one or two of those expected to have puppies available between now and summer. The complicating factor was that I wanted an “intact” female, whereas most of the breeders sell the puppies already desexed. But – based on my fond memories of our dachshund having three litters of puppies when I was a child – I wanted to be able to breed our dog. So I contacted a couple of the breeders to ask about possibilities.

Turns out that an intact breeding female is rather expensive. (Heck, a Labradoodle puppy is expensive, a breeding female is that much more!!!) But then one of the breeders said she’d consider selling one of their year-old females, named Amore, who had just finished all the health testing that is recommended prior to breeding and would be ready to breed this spring. In fact, she could breed her to one of their studs and then ship her to us in whelp in mid to late May (just in time for the kids birthdays!).

(Puppy with her current girl.)

The more I thought of it, the more I liked that idea. We are going to be around most of the summer, just taking short weekend camping trips and not travelling anywhere very far except for five days the kids will be at our church’s summer camp. The litter would – hopefully – not arrive until after that. With any luck, there would be enough puppies that the income would cover the cost of the dog – and maybe a bit more – which would be really nice, seeing as I’ve shelled out a chunk of change for the two different dyslexia interventions for Mustang.

So I made the arrangements and told the kids.

Well, since then we’ve all been a bit dog-crazy. Our bookshelf is crammed with library books about raising, training, and caring for dogs (and one or two on breeding). Mustang took it into her head on Palm Sunday evening that we needed to doggy-proof the house NOW and we all spent an hour or so putting things from low shelves onto high shelves and in plastic containers. Of course, this was all done Mustang-style, so it’s rather haphazard and not very organized – but I’ll say this, that when Mustang WANTS to do something, it WILL get done and quick! She’s got me reading to her a thorough kid-level book about caring for dogs and making up a list of things we need to do and buy. The kids are saving all their allowance money to buy doggy-related stuff.

And as for me, I’m figuring out how to set up a website presence as a breeder and get registered with the breeders association, to help as a means of selling the eventual puppies. Thinking of how and where to put a dog run on our yard, since we can’t exactly fence it (owing to presence of fire hydrant – hmm, if we had a male dog that could come in handy, come to think of it). Where in the house to have the puppy pen. What to do in summer when we’re on weekend camping trips. What on earth one feeds month-old puppies. And so on…

Not to mention looking forward to having an active little furry presence in the house again.

(Photos courtesy of Urban Doodles.)