The Puppy Hunt

The puppy hunt is on. Since we've got less than a week left before we move to Bloomington, we're starting to get more serious about our search for a puppy. The Bloomington Animal Shelter usually gets lots and lots of puppies in the summer. The woman I spoke with there even said we'd probably be able to get a golden retriever mix, which is fantastic!

We're also starting to check out breeders of purebred goldens, but most breeders have waiting lists for their puppies months in advance, meaning we'd be looking at puppy availability in July or August. I'm not convinced that for a family pet a breeder is going to give me a puppy all that much better than a pound puppy, so it looks like for a number of reasons we'll probably wind up adopting a puppy from the pound some time this month.

To prepare for a new puppy, we started looking into training books. We bought "The Art of Raising a Puppy" by the Monks of New Skete - yes, they are real monks who raise german shepherds and spend their days studying and training the dogs. They even have a doggie boarding school where for $2000 you can send your dog there for 3-4 weeks for intensive training! You can read about them here. Paul is just finishing up the book, and I'm going to read it next. So far, from the excerpts Paul has read me, it's very helpful in understanding and responding to dog behavior.

In the meantime, we're working on names. So far the winner seems to be "Rewley", after the street we lived on in Oxford. But of course, we'll have to see how the dog responds to the name.

Hopefully the right pup will come along soon!