Here’s a surprise..   Diane, Gabe and I had been talking about getting a 2nd dog on and off for several months. Chai has been getting pretty lonely in the house by herself… and frankly, sometimes, so do we. Yesterday Diane found an add for labradoodle puppies in the Free Press.. and here’s what happened this morning:

Diane had us all up and in the car by 8AM.. no small task for a Saturday. Friend Kevin was coming with us, too. Chai was waiting by the door with her best “don’t leave me” eyes.. so in the last minute we gave in and piled her in the car, too.

The puppies were in West Charleston, a few miles outside of Derby Line on the Canadian border. It was a long, pretty 2 hour ride to get there. By the time we rolled up to Dwayne’s kennel, we were pretty excited.. and tired of driving. He met us and led us directly to the puppies. There were 11 puppies in the litter.. 10 black ones and one light one. They’d put the girls and the boys in separate pens. We were pretty sure we wanted another girl.. so that’s where we started.

A few of the puppies came out to give us the sniff test.. Two in particular were interested in us.. the whitish one and one of the black ones.. In the end, this one black one really won us over by following us around. She was definitely the most playful and curious of the bunch.

We all gave her the hug test…

And she won our heart over ! …

We went in and sealed the deal with Dwayne.> The adoption was pretty quick. Dwayne has been doing this for 30 years.. so he really knows his stuff. !

He told us about puppy “X’s” parentage.. Her mom is a first generation labradoodle named Karen and her dad is a standard poodle named Silver..  Here they are :

Now came the moment of truth, time for Chai to meet the puupy.. here’s the first meeting… Neither knew what to make of each other.

We all said goodbye to thedog guys and got in the car for the ride home. Chai could not stay far enough away from the puppy. She insisted on sitting in the ront seat with first Diane…

Then Gabe…

We stopped for a bit to eat…. Here’s Puppy “X” with her first sampling of snow..

Again. Chai chose to observe the puppy from a distance.

We finally made it home at around 2… We got both dogs out of the car to see what would happen. The puppy saw Chai .. may she though of her mom…

Chai didn’t know what to think.. but she made it quite clear that she was not to be bothered.

The puppy went running the other way… and that’s where their reationship still stands at this hour (4:30)

The puppy is still trying to figure out what to make of us and our big house.. she is spending most of her time hiding in corners…

Or in her new crate…

Now.. what do we call this little girl ? .. (and how do we help her big sister Chai get used to her new baby sister ? )

Really.. please send us any name ideas.. we’re still stumped.. OK.. All for now.. More stories certainly coming..   You’ll hear them too, Sam…
-me

ps. The morning was bitter sweet as many things now are.. I was thinking hard of Sam and  the time 4 years ago when we went to Montreal to pick up new baby Chai from the airport

Here’s Sam and baby Chai…   I think you’d like this new puppy too.. Sam…