All About Maggie

Deciding to get a dog was not an easy decision by any means. I know I have mentioned it in the past but I had a lot of fears in getting another dog and overall I wasn't sure that my heart was ready for another dog. It's been the topic of many conversations back and forth between Mike and I and we had pretty much decided we would wait until after vacation in the new year. We discussed getting a rescue dog, but we decided with having the kids now, it just isn't the right time, as you never know what they have been exposed to or how they react with children - just too unpredictable for this life stage. 

 So you are probably wondering how we ended up with one now? Well Miss Gracie was just down right depressed. She has lost weight, mopes, eats very little and just has no will in her. We were actually concerned that had we waited a few more months AND gone away on vacation that she may not make it. It was only getting harder and harder to watch her daily.  

   It started out with just looking for litters being born and then it quickly came into okay what breed are we going with? Obviously we love golden retrievers, but they require quite a bit of maintenance. We were leaning towards a lab, as they don't quite have the same hair maintenance. Then we had to decide how far we willing to travel for a pup. We couldn't get over the price of dogs now! It blows my mind how much people ask for cross breeds, yet alone pure bred. Clearly we haven't bought a dog in quite some time. I spoke to a couple different breeders of both labs and golden retriever/lab cross, but ultimately we came across the lab shepherd ad. I was a little hesitant, as I am not a shepherd fan, but agreed to consider them. We ended up setting up an appointment to go see them that same day, as they were only 20 minutes away.   

 I was happy to hear that the mother is mostly lab herself and the dad is pure bred lab. The Mom had a litter of 12!! We had 4 girls to choose from. We did want a boy, but weren't against a girl if we liked them. We took both kids with us and saw all 4 of the remaining pups, all black little fur balls at 4 weeks old!

Picking a puppy is not an easy task, especially with children. I felt like we were there forever. Miss Maggie stood out to us, because she didn't just come running out at as, she stayed back and assessed, then she approached Noah first and then came running to Mike and I and was already trying to play with Noah, where as the other pups aside from one other were already uninterested. Maggie picked us, just as much as we picked her. Maggie was also the only girl with white on her chest out of the 4 as well.   

 So we picked Maggie and then had a few weeks left before we could get her. Noah didn't quite understand why we went to see them and was sad that we didn't bring one home. For the next few weeks he kept bringing up the puppy, asking Daddy if we could get one and then Santa. The breeder was sending weekly pictures of our pup, which was great to see her grow!!

We decided that we didn't want to give Maggie to the kids on Christmas, because we wanted the excitement of Christmas to be just on Christmas, so we picked up Maggie on the 23rd and surprised the kids with her then. Noah wasn't to sure of her until we took her out of the box and then he was soo excited and the playing began. Gracie was taken back, but interested. She didn't growl or get upset, but rather undecided on the new addition. Well that didn't take long to change.

They are the best of friends already today. Our Gracie has that twinkle in her eye again, is playing and is just soo much happier. Maggie is pretty good with the kids, although we have some work to do with nipping and jumping, but overall, she is great. She is already walking great on a leash and asking to outside! She sleeps all night in bed with us and we are crate training for when we leave the house and even that is getting better.

Maggie has been a great addition to our family and yes it can be stressful at times, but it was stressful before her at times too. As far as training her, we will have more time to dedicate to her training over these slow months for M, rather than in the spring when he is busy.

Welcome to the family Mags!