I don’t outright talk about religion here–even though it is a HUGE part of my personal life–because I feel like it is something vastly personal and I never want any friends to feel excluded because their beliefs do not match my own. But since my word for this year is FAITH, I am going to share a few posts about how things are going with my word–and that means I am going to share some very personal, vulnerable aspects of my own faith and the journey I’ve been on this year. I hope that instead of feeling excluded or triggered, you can see your own personal journey in what I share and look for our commonality. If you are currently in a place where religion makes you feel offended or upset, you might want to pass on this series. My goal is to share in hopes that it helps bring joy and hope to your life. If you are not in a place where you feel open to someone else’s perspective on faith, this will be here if and when you are ever interested in the future.
Remember COVID puppies? I swear every day during quarantine I was seeing new social media posts from friends everywhere who were sharing cute pics of their adorable new puppies. But I was not envious. We already had a dog. She was our first “baby” back when we didn’t know if we’d ever have children of our own. She was a beautiful 13-year-old dog and our children loved her dearly. I did not feel the itch to add a puppy to our party of 7 (plus dog) life. I just enjoyed all the cute puppy posts and celebrated that I didn’t have to deal with potty training and incessant chewing. I was good.
Then, in August, ours sweet pup passed away. We were all devastated by the loss.
For months after her passing, at least one child each day would come to me at some point during that day and tell me that they missed our dog. It pricked my heart each time. And beyond the daily visits from my children, I felt that nudge. You know the one. The one that makes you do things you wouldn’t ordinarily do on your own. We’ve been feeling them a lot lately (you’ll see as the series continues..), but this nudge—this prompting—to get a puppy was the first. And after watching our youngest girl spend most of her Christmas visit loving on my family’s dogs, and our kids going crazy to pet any dog they saw anywhere, I knew they needed another dog in their lives. But I wasn’t ready. The fur! The mess! The work! I have five kids! I didn’t feel like I needed ONE MORE THING. But in January, my heart started to change. And after those constant nudges for months on end, mixed with a few situations that were too incredible to be coincidences, I knew. I couldn’t deny that I was being inspired by a loving Father in Heaven to pursue this, for reasons I do not yet understand. So, I started researching—because that’s what I do.
I knew I needed to minimize the fur situation, so I narrowed the list to dogs that do not shed. I talked to breeders of labradoodles and watched videos and read articles. I just wasn’t sure! I talked to friends who owned different breeds and even my cousin who is a professional dog walker. And it was my husband who suggested we look into the Portuguese Water Dog. I had seen the breed on several lists for non-shedding dogs, but I, of course, dug deeper.
Now before we move further, I know there are dog lovers out there who are condemning me for not going to a shelter and rescuing a dog there. I hear you. We rescued a black lab named Molly and loved her through her difficulties and challenges for about seven years until she passed away. We still love her! And when our children are older, we will probably rescue again. But after what we went through with our sweet Molly, we did not feel that this was the right season of life for us to bring in a dog with unknown challenges to a family with five children who would want to love on this dog and were not equipped to help a dog who may come with a whole lot of baggage. And so I searched several breed-specific rescues as well, on the off-chance that one of their rescues was having puppies. After months of searching, I had no luck there either.
I spent months researching and reading before we settled on the Portuguese Water Dog. I bought a couple breed-specific books (plus some general dog-training books), joined a couple Facebook groups for the breed, and in the meantime, got on a couple breeders’ waitlists. Yeah, it was a months-long process. And in all honesty, I know I lucked out because some waitlists are over a year out. In March, we got a call from the first breeder letting us know her puppies had been born. But something didn’t feel quite right and just before it became our turn to choose, I asked her to confirm the price via text message and she had actually raised the price a few hundred dollars from our original conversation. I knew that if she wasn’t honest about this, there was a good chance she wasn’t being honest about other things, too, and I responded to her text wishing her all the best and letting her know we would pass. Fortunately for us, the other breeder who had us on her waitlist reached out with photos of her new litter of puppies a few weeks later. This situation felt right and because she was only a few hours away, we were even able to drive out to choose our puppy after meeting the eligible females. And on the first of May, we brought our new puppy, Koko, home as the newest member of our family.
I would be lying to you if I told you that May was an easy month, but I can definitely confirm that this sweet puppy is meant to be a part of our family right now. I don’t know all of the reasons. I have some theories and we’ll just have to wait and see, but I have felt that reassurance over and over again. I have been so impressed with how helpful our kids have been (did they let me sleep in on Mother’s Day? No, but they do willingly take her out throughout the day…) and our online puppy training course has been a lifesaver! I integrated it into our science curriculum and we watched the videos together as part of each school day. The videos have really helped our kids and me all be on the same page when it comes to training. Don’t get me wrong: having a puppy is still a LOT of work, but I know things could be so much worse! And, hey, while we’re training our little baby shark, I just keep reminding myself that at least we aren’t sweeping up lots of fur—after our black lab and our lab-German Shepherd mix, we’ve been there, done that!
In these past few months, I have gotten glimpses of why we needed this puppy right now. I would never have guessed that getting a puppy was the solution for what our family would need in our future. Never. Just the other day I told someone all that we have going on right now and they looked at me in disbelief and asked me if I knew all of this was coming when we got the puppy. I shrugged. Yes, I knew some of what was coming when we picked up our puppy, but by then we already knew it was the right thing for our family and though the timing seemed inconvenient to say the least, we couldn’t deny how we felt. So we moved forward. We grew our faith. And this was the first major step in my 2021 faith-growing journey.
I have no doubt I will have many more stories to share about our little Koko in the years to come. For now, though, stay tuned for more about my 2021 word: FAITH. This faith-growing experience was only the beginning.
