My Social Media-less Life

A few months ago, one of my mom’s friends, who also happens to be a Golden Retriever breeder, was “given” a dog. A Golden Retriever of course, that she could breed with one of her males. No problem, right?

Except things seemed off with this new dog in the house. It wasn’t bad, necessarily. It was just… off. And since this new dog was already an adult dog with learned behaviors different from what Leslie* wanted, the dog tended to get the backseat when it came to the amount of attention she would give to the other dogs, and little things like that.

Within a few weeks, Leslie had this idea: she could give the dog to my mom! So we had it all set up… and then Leslie changed her mind because she could still breed the dog with one of her males and make some good therapy dogs. Both dogs have really great temperaments (I have met both of them), so naturally why not make even better dogs? Theoretically, of course.

Fast forward to this weekend: the dogs have been mated, the puppies have been had and handed off to their forever homes… and today, Hope finally came to her new forever home with my mom.

Hope still has one more litter of puppies to give, but Leslie felt it was best for her to stay with us until it was time to mate her and get her ready for puppies again.

None of us are mad about that arrangement, honestly. Not even Hope, as you can see in this picture.

There is some work to be done with Hope. Manners to be learned and new habits to make, but overall, she’s already the bestest girl and almost everything Leslie said we’d have issues with, we haven’t had any issues with.

Hint: my mom doesn’t have issues with dogs, and that’s why she has so many and they get along so well. 😉

Hank (the darker Golden in the picture) was so excited to meet Hope! He even tried to do business with her, and she said, “no thank you!” It was funny because Hank has never been told no by another dog before; he was very confused. (Also, Hank is fixed, so no real business could be done anyway. 😛 )

I’m excited to see what kind of dog Hope becomes and I look forward to more years with her. 🙂 I think she’s the redemption my mom’s house needs after last Christmas and the dog we had to put down.

Today, I thought about the fact that it’s been just over two years since we had gotten that last dog (Belle), and it’s been just under one year since we had to put her down.

As the Lord always does… He sent a new Hope at just the right time, and that’s why I think it was meant to be.

*Leslie is not her real name