A special surprise

My kids don’t read my blog so I feel it is ok to put this out there. Besides I am way too excited to hold it in.

We have felt a hole around here since we lost Barley our Golden Retriever and Andy and I have been talking about getting another dog. Another big dog that I could walk the trails with alone and feel safe. One that likes to play. Shiloh likes to play, but her idea of play is to go out with Austin and his friends and run around with their dogs down by the river off leash. She HATES walking on a leash and is awful at it. Her beagle nose just goes crazy. She’s also pretty small and not all that intimidating.

I had my heart set on rescuing a greyhound. But the more I looked into it the more I realized that at this stage of our lives, it probably wasn’t the best choice. The biggest reason is our almost 2 acre property has an underground fence and because Greyhounds are sight hounds and trained to chase small critters, they don’t adopt to people with underground fences. Greyhounds will run right through them and they run so fast you can’t catch them. Then there is the fact that we have Zoey, who is a very small dog that is scared of everything. If a greyhound chased her she would probably be traumatized forever.

As I was getting over my disappointment of the greyhound a friend posted on fb that her friends dogs just had puppies and she was getting one.

The pup looked just like Barley did and I quickly clicked thru the rest of the pics

Mom and Dad -dads name is Riley, the street we used to live on 🙂

I knew Andy thought we should wait until Spring to get another dog but I sent the pics to him anyway, because who can resist spreading a little Goldie love??

And turns out Andy couldn’t resist those little Goldie faces.

For some reason I am all teary eyed thinking about this new little pup. Because of Barley. Because time flies. Because dogs are so special. Because Cole is going to be so excited- he wants one so bad.

Because we have put our kids through so much the past two years.

Because I want to spend the winter snuggled up by the fire with that furry little face.

Austin already knows, we had to tell him since Andy is going to Indiana to pick our new little dude up and will miss his XC meet tomorrow. Blake will be in West Virginia at a lax tournament so he won’t see it until he gets home after the weekend.

But Cole and Eva will be surprised, and excited. I can’t wait.

Last night I got updated puppy pics- they went to the vet yesterday and then had a day playing outside.

The first one cracks me up- Mama was getting a break on the other side of the fence.

We don’t know which one will be ours- there are 5 girls and 4 boys. We are getting a boy.

Oh man- I wish I could take them all!!!

Miss you Barley girl, I know you would approve.