Now that the cat’s out of the bag, (or should I say dog…) I thought it would be only fitting to share a bit about our sweet Bentley Boy!
As you know, we’re total animal lovers. We’ve had 2 dogs and 3 cats since our first year of marriage.
WHERE IT ALL STARTED
Our two dogs Chloe and Allie are Shi Tzu Bichon mixes (aka teddy bear breed). They were 3 years or so apart in age and such sweet sisters! We’ve loved having these sweet little pups as our family members.
Matt and I adopted our cat Pumpkin in 2011 right before we got our second dog, Allie. (Pictured below).
We only had Chloe, Allie and Pumpkin until 2018 when we adopted another kitten (Sadie) when we thought it may help our older cat from feeling so stressed.
Quick side note…..
Our sweet kitty, Pumpkin, had a near death bladder blockage back in January of 2018 due to stress.
Basically, he got so stressed out when we were out of town over the holidays he quit drinking and became overly dehydrated.
This ordeal aged him and made us realize he may need a “buddy” so he’s not alone whenever we leave.
This now put us at 2 dogs, 2 cats, 2 boys and 2 parents with their handful!
Now, back to the MAIN story…
OUR SWEET CHLOE
If you’ve been following along on Instagram, you already know we lost our sweet Chloe girl just this past January.
Being the first dog we had to put down as a family…. This was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. But she’s no longer suffering and is in peace now.
Usually, I would want to rush back out and adopt another puppy to help with the grieving process.
However, we just weren’t ready. We felt the need to not try and “replace” her but to learn what life felt like without her.
Those first few weeks were difficult. Especially for our sweet dog Allie that missed her sister more than all 7 of us combined. (Watching her mourn honestly was the worst part.)
We knew we wanted another dog eventually but we weren’t sure when, what or how.
A FAMILY DREAM
Ever since Matt and I have been together, we always knew sometime down the road we wanted to have a big dog.
We even knew we wanted a Golden Retriever or Lab.
Once we had the kids, we knew we wanted to wait until we had time to truly devote to training the dog. We also wanted to be sure we had kids that were old enough to help and enjoy the process of adopting a dog.
As some of you may know, my husband suffers from PTSD and severe anxiety from a traumatic childhood.
Throughout our marriage, it has been suggested to us from several doctors and counselors to do some research about a therapy companion.
FINDING THE RIGHT DOG
Several years ago after doing some research, we decided that when the time was right, we would adopt an English Cream Golden Retriever. This particular breed is one of the best when it comes to therapy dogs.
Once we lost Chloe, Matt started researching breeders that had goldens (specifically English Creams).
A suggestion popped up for a breeder that was just 2 hours or so from us! She actually was one of the highest rated breeders especially for therapy and service dogs.
After just a few conversations with her, we knew RIGHT away this was the direction the Lord was taking us! We put our names on her list that day!
IT’S PUPPY TIME!
So you know the saying “you make plans and God laughs”? Well this is exactly the case with the next part of the story.
Like I said before, we were not ready to go pick out a new puppy so shortly after Chloe’s passing in January. So when we put our name on the list for the breeder, we told her we didn’t mind being farther out on the list for a litter later in the year.
The breeder told us it would probably be August when our puppy would be ready. Knowing that we had about 8 months, we went about our business as normal all the while knowing a puppy was coming sometime this year.
Well! On the last weekend in March, just 6-7 weeks after we put our name on the list, we got a call saying our puppies had been born……. We were in total shock.
Apparently our name had been moved up in the list due to so many families going with regular goldens or other breeds as well as the mamas having so many puppies per litter!
When we asked what day the puppies would be ready she told us May 28th…..
We looked at each other and laughed. That just so happened to be Matt’s 30th birthday!! What crazy timing! (Of course, it wasn’t so crazy to the one who knows and plans all!)
We took that as a sign from the Lord that this puppy was a true gift. As my sweet hubby goes into a new decade of life, a new companion can come along as well.
WHICH ONE! WHICH ONE!?
Now that we knew that a puppy was coming and SOON! We knew it was time to start planning big time.
At first, I thought I wanted a girl. I’ve always had girl dogs and it just seemed more natural.
However, after talking to others with big dogs and reading more about how to find a good therapy dog when picking out a puppy, we decided that a boy would probably do better.
Side Note: Apparently girl dogs like to “mother” everyone and have a need for control……… I don’t know anyone like that…HA! All jokes aside, a boy dog that is not an “alpha” is the best choice when it comes to therapy dogs. Especially for another male.
So! Once we nailed down the gender, we decided on Bentley for the name. We had several names for girls but only one for a boy. Which made it much simpler!
A month before Bentley was able to come home with us, the breeder had us come choose our puppy.
She had been sending us weekly videos and updates of the puppies ever since birth and we already had an idea of which one would work best as a therapy dog based on her personality evaluations.
The minute Matt held the puppy with the black collar (each puppy has a color coded collar to know who’s who) he knew this was our Bentley.
He was calm, he was sleepy, gentle even when playful. He didn’t mind if you laid him on his back in your arms (a sign of submission meaning they’re not “dominant”).
Everything the breeder had told us about him had been true. We knew he was the one.
It was pretty sad to leave him there after knowing he was going to be ours. (Poor Jaden had the hardest time).
But! Just a few short weeks later, we drove back down and took home our sweet Bentley!
He adjusted so well to our home and our family. Bentley started training just a day or two ago and is already doing so well!
We are so thrilled to have him here and can’t wait to watch him grow and learn!
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Have you gone through the breeder/pet adoption search before? I’d love to hear from you! Shoot me an email! Be sure to subscribe below so you don’t miss a thing as well as follow me on Instagram and Pinterest!