I've gotten a few questions regarding our sweet Poppy girl so I figured this would be a great place to answer them all!
What happened to your other dog(s)?
So before Drex and I got married (and by before I mean, when we were in high school before), we had two dogs. Drex had a beagle named Loosie, and I had Nitro, a Border Collie (and my first baby). Super long story short, we rehomed Loosie December 2015, before Eden was born. There were a lot of factors that went into this and ultimately it was the best decision for not only us, but her too! We planned on just having Nitro (whom we both dearly dearly loved) and life went on.
We'd known Nitro wasn't the hugest fan of kids (and by wasn't the hugest fan I mean avoided them, wouldn't allow them to pet him or approach him, etc) but he'd always simply kept his distance. As David got older and started acting more like a toddler, this became a bigger issue and after several instances Drex and I knew we couldn't keep him. We cried SO much. Nitro was our baby, a member of our family, we loved him so much and HE loved us so much, just not our kids. I was so torn up. We ended up being contacted by the most amazing couple, who came and met us/hung out with us for 2 hours and then did a 24 hour trial with him and it was perfect. Rehoming him was so hard. It still is. I miss him SO much. They send us pictures and updates and I'm forever thankful but my heart still hurts when I think about it all.
Why another dog? And why not a rescue?
Firstly, I love dogs. I grew up with dogs and I knew I really wanted that for my own kiddos. The period between not having Nitro and bringing Poppy home was SO lonely. I'm here all day and when the kids nap it's just me and I really hated not having a companion! I knew I didn't want to be a dogless house, so we knew we definitely were going to get another. As for why we didn't do a rescue, we wanted to, but we were given pushback with having such young kids. After inquiring about a few dogs we decided a puppy would be the best choice for our family in the long run. Lots of hard work, lots of chaos, but lots of reward!
Why a Golden Retriever?
What's funny is I've been asked a few times why we went with a Golden retriever and not a lab! Are labs just more common or something? Must be. Anyways, we both had talked previously about our next dog being a Golden. I grew up with one and she was THE BEST dog and we both just really liked them and their reputations for being great family dogs! As for the lab comment, I LOVE long haired dogs. So labs were out ;)
So...how is it having a puppy and two little kids?
#realtalk. The first few days alone, I was convinced this was the worst decision ever. No joke ;) We hadn't established a routine which was SO stressful! However, after that first week it's honestly been so great. She's AMAZING with the kids (and honestly that feels like an understatement). We've got more of a routine down, and right now we're working on biting! Right before we brought her home (literally the day before), we moved back into our freshly renovated house where we'd ripped out all the carpet and replaced it with hardwood which has made potty training SO MUCH EASIER.
I think that covers the big questions I've gotten! If you have anymore, let me know! All in all, Poppy is a dream puppy and we love her so very much (and now here's a few pictures).
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