This happened recently.

I know….so cute! His name is Del – he a goldendoodle- and all it took was one look at him and I became a pandemic puppy owner. I failed all my promises to myself. I wasn’t going to get another dog until at least one of our current dogs passed. I failed my attempts to stop from getting puppy fever.

But you devils on social media that posted your new puppy pics every day – I tried to ignore you! With coffee in hand every morning I would try to surf on by the sweet pics of fifi, foofoo, and fifi. And curse you Tucker Budzyn – cutest Golden Retriever (sorry to my Rudy) – I could not stop myself from watching his YouTube videos and his Facebook stories. I became obsessed with his sweet crunched up face when he was confused.

I began researching dogs. For the future. I missed my Old English Sheepdog- there was a void. So just for giggles I began looking online for OES puppies, I then began looking at golden puppies, I then saw a doodle of some sort somewhere – probably on Facebook. And I began to look into doodles, Sheepydoodles, Berniedoodles, Goldendoodles. Site after site I subjected myself to sweet puppy faces. This for me is a torture. I LOVE dogs. I was born with a connection to dogs. I can’t remember ever not wanting a dog – not being drawn to dogs. (I was the kid who always wanted to pet every dog she saw. Even the ones you are supposed to let work like service dogs…I would reach out and touch them as they walked by- i know! ).But I do think that Dog people get this.

I think my husband saw the trajectory of what was happening before I did. I was looking for dogs online. He knows the signs – we had just gone through this with horses- I got a new one in late June- but thats another post. But Kevin knew before i did that we would be getting a new dog not in a couple years but this year. I just didn’t know it yet.

Many breeders had waiting lists – up to a year long. So I felt safe bc there was a wait. I knew this time around I wanted to get a puppy and from a breeder. We have rescued many many dogs over the years and have 3 rescues here now if you include my moms dog. And a friend even told me that she was having trouble finding a rescue as the rescues were so busy with applications.

Covid really created a pet craze. Makes sense -more people at home sheltering from a scary virus. They have more time for a dog. And isn’t a dog a nice distraction from all of the craziness and scariness going on? I can tell you I have tried daily to make my life feel normal. These are scary times.

I had a kid leave for the Navy during the pandemic. It threw me for a loop. He was our last to leave home- and it hit me hard. The military had my son. There was another void in the house. A huge one. One that can’t really be filled with pets and stuff. But I think part of my adding a new horse and a new puppy (oh and fish tanks) was to help me heal some from my empty nest.

What Kevin saw coming did come to a head one day when I saw a post about labradoodles locally. I contacted the friend who posted about their upcoming addition and asked her about the breeder. Turns out I knew the breeder – we had gotten our lab Lemon – our 11 year old gal- and our Golden Rudy from her. And when I contacted her she told me she had a 3 week old Goldendoodle male that was a distant cousin to Rudy. So the stars aligned for me and all the reasons I wanted to wait for a dog went out the window and all the excuses to get one now sounded flat. I just wanted this puppy. So Kevin and I said YOLO and and here is Del, (Delta, Delbert, Delinquent…).

Yolo is maybe what I should have named Del. It certainly is a mantra of mine. I have to decide often if I am being impulsive or just living a YOLO life. Maybe it is both sometimes. But after having had cancer and having chronic pain after the cancer treatments and then being blessed with getting that pain dialed back – I just sometimes have to say oh well WTF YOLO. And this little dog- who is growing by the minute has been a wonderful, tiring, PITA, cute, loving, destructive addition to this little place known as Glory View Farm. I hope to be posting more about him.

So I have no excuses to give. Just sometimes you have to say YOLO.