Puppy Love

About three years ago Brynn developed an intense and irrational fear of dogs out of nowhere. Her fear went far beyond not wanting to get close and pet a dog. It was strong enough to prevent her from going to any friend's house that had a dog. She refused to attend birthday parties if they had a dog, even if the dog was put away. While Trick-or-Treating she would stand on the sidewalk while the other kids knocked on a door and if there was a dog in the house she would skip the house altogether. If we went to a park and there was a dog anywhere in the vicinity she would choose to just sit in the car while the rest of us played. Once, the humane society came and did an assembly at her school and brought a couple dogs. Brynn's teacher let her sit by the back wall of the auditorium with hundreds of students between her and the dogs and Brynn was still in frantic tears the entire time. These are just a few examples of how extreme her fear has been and how much it has affected her day to day life. Her fear quickly spread to include any living animal - big or small. One day Mason came home from school and told me Brynn's class had come to his classroom to see the chicks that had just hatched and Brynn had been crying so he had hugged her and helped her calm down. When I asked Brynn why she was crying she said she was so scared of the chicks and one of them hopped out of someone's hands and started running toward her. We are talking about 2 day old chicks bringing her to tears.
While trying to respect that her fears are very real to her we have been trying to gently help her overcome these fears at least to the point that they don't unhealthily disrupt life.
We have slowly seen improvement over the years, but then a few months ago it was like Brynn just woke up one day and decided not only was she okay with dogs, but she LOVED them. After nearly a year of living here, Brynn stepped foot in her best friend's backyard (who also happens to be our next door neighbor) for the first time. They have 2 outdoor dogs that live in the backyard so Brynn has refused to play over there since day 1. Now suddenly Brynn wanted to spend every day in their backyard playing with the dogs. It didn't take long for her to start asking for a dog of our own and pretty soon she declared that all she wanted for Christmas this year was a dog. Mason and Miles quickly jumped on the bandwagon of asking for a dog although Brynn was the one pushing the hardest. She would leave notes like this on our bed each night begging and pleading for us to let her get a dog. She signed them all "Puppy Lover Brynn."

This started the conversation between Scott and I about getting a dog. Although both of us were perfectly content living our life without a dog, we both had dogs when we were growing up and agreed that every child deserves the chance to have a dog at some point in their life.
I was just 3 years old when my Dad brought Sparky, a 1-year-old Dalmation, home from work one day without ever talking to my mom about it. She could have complained about the added work and mess it would mean for her, but instead she said okay and we all loved that crazy, naughty dog for the next 11 years. I remember when I was growing up and we would do getting to know you games at school that would ask about if you had pets and I always felt so bad for the kids who said their mom wouldn't let them get a pet. I did not want to be the kind of mom that put my preferences and convenience before my kids' experiences and happiness.

Scott was going to take a lot more convincing, but at the same time remembered how he begged and pleaded for a dog growing up until his parents finally caved and let him get his beloved dog Mozart when he was 12 years old.

We both were weakening to the idea.
We knew that in order for us to get a dog it would have to be the right breed. We wanted a breed that would make a great family dog, but we also wanted it to be non-shedding and a smaller size. After doing some research we decided a Mini Goldendoodle would be the best fit for our family. We started looking around and came upon a local breeder who had a litter of F1B (second generation - makes non shedding hair and size more controlled than in first generation) Mini Goldendoodles exactly like we were looking for.

We took the kids out and spent some time with the mama dog, Star, and her litter of ten 4 week old puppies - 5 girls and 5 boys. Star was an amazing dog who was so patient and calm with our kids, even crazy Ryan. Star was an F1 Mini Goldendoodle who had been bred from their family Golden Retriever and a Miniature Poodle. She had ended up about 27 pounds and non-shedding but with the personality of a golden retriever, making her an ideal family dog. This was the third litter from Star and a Miniature Poodle, all of which had been very healthy and good dogs. They even had multiple people coming back to get another dog from this litter because they love their previous dog so much. It felt like the ideal situation for us and before we left we had put down a deposit. Just like that we had committed to getting a puppy. We had to decide if we wanted to be on the list to choose a boy or girl puppy. After much debate we decided to go with a girl because most of them were smaller in size and because the kids all felt like we needed a girl to keep the boy-girl pattern going in our family. Not to mention that Brynn didn't want to be the only girl in the family. The kids could not believe we were actually going to get a dog and were bursting with excitement. We still had over a month until the puppies could leave their mother which was good because we needed that time to prepare to bring a puppy home. We researched and ordered all the different products we would need for our pup and started getting our house set up. We read every book we could on how to train and care for a puppy.

When the puppies were 5 weeks old we were finally able to go pick out which one would be ours. We were the 3rd pick from the girls so there were three puppies left for us to choose from. When we had seen the puppies before there was one girl puppy who was significantly bigger than the others. Since we were looking for a smaller dog we had previously decided we would not be picking her. So when she was one of the dogs the breeder pulled out for us to play with we almost said to just put her back, but almost instantly there was something about her that captivated us all. She had the sweetest personality that was the perfect combination of calm and playful. There was another puppy who perfectly fit the physical description we were looking for. She was petite with lots of dark curls and there was no reason for us to think she wouldn't be a great dog for our family. But we were continually drawn back to the bigger girl. The breeder anticipated that the big girl would grow to be around 35 pounds which was bigger than we wanted, while the little girl would definitely be less than 25 pounds. We went back and forth and back and forth over which puppy to get. The kids had all fallen in love with the bigger puppy- Scott and I too for that matter - but we had already made up our mind we didn't want that big of a dog. We ended up going home that night completely torn and unsure which puppy to choose. After much debate we text the breeder and told her we were going with the smaller puppy. I hardly slept a wink that night as I regretted our decision and just knew in my heart that the big puppy was meant to be a part of our family. Her connection with all of us was undeniable and was far more important than her size. The next morning I text the breeder and told her we were having second thoughts and wanted to switch to the big puppy if it wasn't too late. She responded that she was so glad to hear we had changed our minds because there had been something so special between the kids and the big puppy that she really felt like she would be the perfect family dog for us. The breeder even went so far as to tell me that if she were going to pick a dog from this litter it would be this one because she reminded her of the mom dog, Star, and the grandma dog their pet Golden Retriever who they had loved so much. She said they each possessed a human-like quality that made them a great addition to the family. Later that day she sent us this picture of our sweet puppy.

Even though there is still so much to do in preparation (will I ever really be ready for this?), we are so excited to bring our Pup home in a few weeks.