New Addition

For Anna's 10th birthday, we told her she could get what she's been begging for forever - a dog of her own.  Specifically, a golden retriever.  Since then we've been working with Gold Ribbon Rescue, getting approved, then waiting for a match.

As it happened, they got a mom and a litter of puppies.  "They are 95% Golden Retriever!" they told me.  "Are you interested?"  Hmm, not sure how they came up with that percentage, but we were mildly interested.   There is a new DNA test available to find out what breeds a dog is made of.  Its quite accurate on mildly mixed dogs, not so much for very mixed mutts.  I asked if I paid for the test, could we DNA test the litter?  They decided yes, and I met the mom (a Golden looking sweet female, but only 40lbs, muzzle too short to be all Golden Retriever) and the adorable fuzzikins that were her litter.  I drew blood from one of them, and sent it to the lab.

Three long weeks later, the results came back -- 75% Golden Retriever!  Of the grandparents, 3 were purebred Goldens, and one was a very mixed mutt, with markers for Basenjis, English Wolfhound, Spinone Italiano -- but none of the breeds I wanted to avoid.  With summer vacation upon us, we knew there would be no better opportunity to get a puppy.

I mean, how could you resist this?

 Anna did not actually know she was getting a puppy until we actually went to pick him up.  It was love at first sight!

 She has named him TOBY, and he's won all our hearts.  Well, Francesca (my 5 yo catahoula) is still a little grumpy.  And Anna is learning just how much work a new puppy really is.  We've had him for 3 weeks now, and he's grown quite a bit from these pictures.

 But he's still very precious!