Welcoming Ceilidh ("Kay-Lee") into our family

[Diana B]

Hi everyone,

I am new to the forum and to doodle ownership. We adopted our labradoodle, Ceilidh, about a month ago and we are absolutely loving her.

We had our little guy, Logan, who is a shih tzu cross, and I started getting the itch to have another dog. We had just bought a house with room for a bigger dog and DH really wanted a larger dog like he'd had as a kid. I am mildly allergic to dogs, so we wanted to go at least moderately hypoallergenic. We had loved some of the doodles we had met with Logan at the dog park and decided we'd really like a doodle. We did lots of reading and researched some of the breeders in our area. We'd adopted Logan from the SPCA and had such a good experience training him and helping him with his issues that we really wanted to rescue again. I found the DRC page and stalked it just about everyday for a dog that would be right for us and less than an 8 hour drive from Ontario. 

One day, I was browsing one of the local SPCA websites and there was a 1.5 year old female doodle listed. I thought "that's strange, doodles almost never show up in the local shelters". She had the same personality profile as Logan and seemed like she might be the right fit for our family. I ended up driving there later that day and meeting her with my DH and Logan.

We fell in love pretty much right away. Ceilidh was a big suck and just wanted to stand there and be pet the entire 2 hours we were there. Her and Logan sniffed each other and didn't seem to think much one way or the other, but there weren't any issues.

Ceils was really matted and not in the best of shape. She had obviously come into the shelter in heat and looked as if she'd had a number of litters of puppies based on the size of her nipples. The shelter had spayed her and vetted her, but groomers they were not. She was an awful mess! Matts everywhere and parts of her body shaven for surgery and others not. She had bad scrapes on her back - from the clippers or before, we aren't sure.

The first thing we did was get our new girl groomed. She was so patient, letting them shave her right down to get all the matts out. I know she'll have beautiful wavy fur again one day when it all grows back. It was amazing how loose her skin was under all that messed up fur.

The first couple nights were a bit tough. Ceilidh growled at Logan and he hid from her. She cried at night in her crate and DH ended up sleeping on the couch next to it. I had to get back to my clinical rotation for 2 days before I could come home and be with her and it broke my heart to leave her.

Over the weeks, things have been getting a lot better. Her and Logan aren't best of friends yet, but they tolerate each other and are trying to learn how to play together. It doesn't help that she is 3X his size! She didn't really understand his game of tug at first, but now they enjoy playing it. She always gives him the toy in the end.

So things are going okay so far. She is doing well with house training and doing A LOT better with leash manners (my arm got a real work out at first). Like a lab, she LOVES food. She gobbles her dinner in about 2 seconds flat. We are trying to be good and not giving her people food for the moment. 

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

How exciting. Congratulations.  It might take a few months but by the time her coat grows out, she and Logan will be good friends. With our foster, we used a specially designed bowl and  a small solid rubber-type cat ball in each compartment. He still inhaled his food but it slowed him down a bit.  I recently heard from his owner and she said after about 6 months he gave a huge sigh and knew he was home.  He quit gobbling and stealing food.

[Diana B]

Thanks Nancy :). We have been considering getting one of those bowls. Sounds like they work well!

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

We tried the ball in the bowl trick, but it didn't slow him down one bit.  The bowl we bought was really cheap.  It didn't slow him down a lot, but it helped.  Adding the small rubber balls, slowed him down some more.