Meet Birdie

June 04, 2013

Meet Birdie

We LOVED our golden retriever, Sullivan. He was the sweetest, kindest, happiest dog. He was extremely obedient, always wanting to please. He never barked, never complained about a child crawling on him, climbing on him, riding him. He was so gentle and loving. Truly, one of a kind that we could never replace.

We lost him two years ago to kidney failure and decided at that time that we needed to take a break from the responsibility of having a dog. Plus, we knew we wanted a puppy and with Ellie being 2 at the time, we wanted to wait for her to grow up a bit so she could be helpful and things could be easier. (I know, easier and puppy should never be used in the same sentence.)

Well, Ellie was having no more waiting on a puppy. She has been asking about getting a new dog forever. Forever! She loves dogs and stops to talk to everyone we meet. She plays with her toy dogs, pretending they are real. Basically, it's time.

So, we researched and thought about what we wanted. We knew we wanted the same personality type dog but Sully's size was too big and the hair balls were out of control. Out of control!

We landed on a goldendoodle. This is a mix between a golden retriever and a poodle. We decided to do a miniature one so it should stay under 30 pounds which will be a huge change from the 110 pounds of Sullivan. Also, being bred with a poodle, a goldendoodle doesn't really shed - they are one of the most hypoallergenic dogs ever. We found our breed, now a breeder.

More research took us to Doodles for You which is a breeder in Fountain Inn. They had a litter born on May 20th and since I had contacted them back in January about the possibility of getting a puppy in July, we were first on the list to pick our puppy. The liter had 8 puppies, 4 females and 4 males. We were pretty sure we wanted a female.

Monday morning found us staring into a bucket of the most adorable little puppies ever:

How could you possibly choose just one!!

We held all the females and everyone had an opinion, of course.

After much debate, we settled on Puppy C...

Meet Birdie:

She's the one sprawled out on top of the pile because we put her back last.

We went outside and met her parents. Dixie, the golden retriever, was the mother. And Roo, the miniature poodle, was the father. Both seemed like sweet dogs that were happy to meet us and be petted.

No one was happy to pull out of the driveway without Birdie but we are anxiously awaiting being able to take her home forever in early July!!