A baby in the Womb (no, not in mine, silly!)
Which of you read last week’s post until the end? Those who did will know what’s coming today…But the interview was all about me, and most of you know me, so that could have been boring, or too lengthy. Anyway, a new adventure is waiting for us in the form of a little Goldendoodle. Since last Christmas I have been checking out various breeders to find a mini Goldendoodle. Of course I did research first, because there are rules we have to adhere to, even though we live in a cottage away from the main building. The little girl should be less than 25 pounds and with beige carpet on all the floors here she should be non-shedding. So we decided on a female Goldendoodle. And because the carpet is beige, and the dog will be small, she can’t be beige or tan or buff colored because we won’t run the risk to stumble over her if we don’t see her against the carpet. So we decided on black. Several people have little dogs in their apartment: a mini poodle (non-shedding), a rescue dog that is almost hairless (she does not have much to shed), two small old mutts, they are shedding like crazy all over the apartment, and a greyhound which is here during the day and gets picked up for the night. Many people have cats.
Of course we also looked at several rescue places, but mini Goldendoodles are hard to come by. Owners who can’t take care of them anymore are not allowed to sell them but are asked to return them to the breeder. Anyway, we did not find a mini, non-shedding puppy in a rescue center, so we looked online. Twice we almost bought one. But when we realized that they would ship a five pound puppy all the way here from Ohio or elsewhere, in freezing weather, with one stopover no less, we canceled the deal. We found a breeder within driving distance; we went to look at their dogs and gave them a downpayment on three upcoming litters. The first litter only had two males. The second litter, ten days ago, had one black female, but she would probably be Medium sized. We have not made a decision yet, because at the end of August, Pepper will have a litter from JP. Pepper is a white Medium Goldendoodle and JP is a black and white mini poodle. They should have mini’s, and we are hoping there will be one black female that can be ours.
But that’s not all. Since we lack the energy to potty train a little pup, she will go to a professional trainer for a month after eight weeks with her mom, to be potty trained, leash trained, and to learn basic obedience. The trainer, a friend of the breeder, is a retired trainer of military dogs and rescue dogs. We think it’s worth the wait – although we’ve been waiting a long time now – to get a semi trained puppy we can have fun with. But we can hardly wait!
The story runs parallel with the way we finally got our Rottweiler Isabelle. After two failed litters at a breeder in Phoenix the local breeder and store owner said she had a two-year-old female for sale. She often had several of her dogs in the store with her, so we went to look and fell in love with Isabelle, even though we thought she looked kind of threatening. Soon enough we learned that she looked threatening to strangers, but she could not help that; what she meant to say was, “hello, I love you!” And we loved her for eleven years, until we had to move to North Carolina and discovered that she had developed cancer. We had to put her to sleep just a week before our departure. No dog can ever fill her place in our hearts, but we have room for another friend.
After several days of rain we have temperatures in the nineties again. The rains, sudden downpours, are refreshing and the air feels like we’re back in Hilo. The geese that were gone for at least a week are back, and returning from an evening walk I saw two small deer next to our house. They were small in comparison to the ones we had in Prescott. Hummingbirds have found the feeder in the back yard and the bird bath in the magnolia tree gets used, if only for drinking as far as I have seen.
The end of our back yard is also the end of the “campus” and is sloping down; from left and right rainwater drizzles down to the corner, where it pools in two places. The water then converges into a little stream (center of the picture) that ripples backward and across the “divide”, where I walk, past the end of Agassi Street in Wimbledon, along the side of the lawn and into the large pond with all the turtles. Even when it has not rained for a while the water has a slight ripple on the surface. Yesterday afternoon I noticed four geese splashing in the water while the large gander watched sitting in the grass on top of the hill, and later in the afternoon the two little deer came out of the woods for a drink of water. It’s a lovely place to live.
It’s a Wonderful Life!
Until Next Time!
Ronny