2019 Life Logs, Day 314: Meeting the Puppies
Date: Sunday, November 10, 2019
Weather: Partly Cloudy; High 57, Low 40 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Today was ‘meet the puppies’ day. Heather, Sam, Jonah, Ollie, and I took off, all excited, to meet Snickerdoodles and his litter mates. But the meeting did not go as expected. The Touchstone kennel, breeders of Australian Labradoodles, is about 20 minutes from here. The breeder is named Sonja and she met us at the door and then brought Snickernoodles to meet us. Snickerdoodles is the name we had given to the puppy I had chosen online, a male parti, part chocolate and part white. Sonja had warned me that he might be shy with so many people, and that he was. She brought one of her Australian Cobberdog puppies out with him to help break the ice, but it didn’t help. Snickerdoodles also looked very small and as she brought out his litter mates, one by one, it became painfully evident that he was by far the smallest and shyest, but also sooooooo cute. 
He mostly hid behind my legs while we played with the other puppies and one little female litter mate became the life of the party. We immediately started calling her Partigirl. She is also a parti, part white and part black, cute as button with a bubbly personality . . . but maybe too bubbly for Jonah and Ollie. They like the calmer pups.
?
But Sam fell head over heels for her while Ollie and Jonah stayed true to Snickerdoodles. Ugh. I had wanted this to be a special occasion for the boys, especially for Ollie who has wanted a puppy since he was old enough to talk.
But it didn’t end up that way. What a dilemma. We had come to meet the one pup I had chosen, Snickerdoodles, but in doing so, we discovered that he has issues we were not aware of beforehand. Now I have to decide if I really want Snickers, or if I want to choose another pup from the litter, or if I want to wait for another litter that might have the just right puppy. Snickers is too shy, Partigirl might be too rambunctious, but there is a third puppy, a little black male, that might be just right.
After the visit, I got a message from my friend Detta Porat in New Hampshire. She wanted to know how the visit went. I texted back the dilemma and then she called me with a wealth of information on choosing a pup. Her daughter Sarah got a Golden Retriever a couple of years ago and then Detta and Tom got one. She has had first-hand experience with a shy dog and her advice is to avoid it if possible as sometimes shy pups are picked on by other dogs. Plus, according to my research, they can get aggressive if other dogs or people wander into their space. Detta had so much information to share and she has crates and a puppy play pen I can use. And just talking through the situation with her made me feel so much better. Still there is so much to think about. I will sleep on this and go back to give the little black male a closer look. He was Heather’s favorite and the second favorite for all of the boys. So maybe he is ‘just right’. More research into shy puppies, a second meeting with the little black male, and then the decision.
