My Non Perfect Doodles

[Nicky, Riley & Boris]

Appealing, adorable, non shedding, easy to train, great with kids and other dogs etc etc etc.  I love perusing the various doodle websites and am a sucker for cute videos of sweet doodle babies.  This feeds the same need in me that has me oooing and aaahing over adorable baby pictures.  But I often leave these sites with a heavy heart. How realistic are these claims?  How much is sales hype? How much is this selling a dream?  For non shedding read copious and frequent grooming and if you can't/won't do it yourself then insert very expensive frequent trips to groomer.  You get the picture.  A quick glance through some of the groups here will do any prospective buyer the world of good.  Good Breeders/Bad Breeders?  Giardia, parasites, genetic illnesses, injuries, vet insurance the list goes on and on.....

So for those of you who love puppies here is a little snippet of my day.  I got up at 6 am to bring Boris out for morning pee and poop. It's freezing cold here by the way and he spends 15 minutes finding the perfect spot while I shiver.   Back to bed we go and Riley and Boris are now on the bed and I can't find any place to put my feet. At 8am we all get up and it's breakfast time.  Boris goes out to poop and comes back in with poop trailing all over his behind.  I am in a terrible rush but spend half an hour cleaning poop off him so I miss breakfast.  This involves using my fingers to remove poop as the shampoo is doing little to shift it.  During the day my partner comes home to feed and let the boys out.  I collect them at 3pm and drive them 40 minutes to day care so they can run off some of that energy while I do some work.  At some point during the day I collect the worm meds and order dog food  ($140 gone like a flash out of my account.)  I get home and we spend ten minutes doing some much needed training as Boris is learning bad habits from his brother and is jumping up.  I am going away for three days on business on Wednesday and this has necessitated lots of planning so the boys remain well cared for and get plenty of exercise in my absence.

My boys are easy, they get on with everybody and are total love bugs BUT they are hard hard work.  Our lives revolve around their needs.  Every thing we do or plan takes them into account.  For websites to be realistic they need to ask hard questions.  It's one thing buying the 'perfect' puppy.  It's quite another achieving that expectation.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

You're making perfect sense, Joanne. The dog has to be for the adult, never for the kids. The dog is yours. Kids cannot be responsible for a dog, no matter how old or mature they are. Kids cannot be the legal owners of anything, and there's a reason for that. You, the adult, have to want the dog for you. That's the only way it works. Yes, it's nice for kids to grow up with dogs, play with dogs, have dogs in their home, but the dog has to be owned by an adult and bonded to an adult, someone who is responsible for his whole life. When someone applies to adopt a dog, if they say the dog is for the kids, it'a an automatic disqualifier.

I was 6 years old when my parents got our first family dog. When she died, I was a junior in college. I wish people would think about that. Those little kids you're buying that puppy for are going to move on, move away, grow up, and the dog will still be there with you. You better really want him.

[Lisa, Daisy & Dexter]

Perfect sense to be Joanne. I also kept my own house, Nicole had chores but most was my responsibility. All of our pets were loved by her but I was the one responsible...just like I was responsible for our daughter.

[Nicky, Riley & Boris]

I've been away for a few days and am just catching up here.  Karen was correct I was not moaning but rather trying to be ironic and pointing out the huge commitment that these dogs need and deserve.  Like Joanne I always had dogs when my children were small but they were always my responsibility and never the children's so for me they were just an extension of my family and I was the boss Momma!

My partner has just agreed how much hard work these boys are as he had sole charge of them for four days...he says he is exhausted and has just had to go out with his friends to a rugby game as he has cabin fever.  The house is like a bomb hit it and the floors (which he says he has washed) have taken me two hours to remove days of mud and our bed has paw prints all over my white sheets LOL

[F, Calla & Luca]

Ah Nicky, now you know why I have brown sheets, really I do : )