Introducing Pippa!

Well, Ive gone and done it. Added another Doodle. I gave it a lot of thought and really agonized over the decision to add a third dog to my pack. Ultimately I let fate decide. I have been looking at this dog for a few weeks on the breeders website. Last week we went to the mountains in North Carolina to visit family and for the beautiful weather and views. We usually try to go every October. I told myself if she was still with the breeder when we went there then she was meant to be mine. I have never had 3 dogs in my life but I think I may have gotten lucky. Pippa is just the sweetest most laid back little girl. Daphne is my high energy Doodle so I figure how hard can it be right?? Pippa is 15 weeks old and an open-faced Goldendoodle. I have always been in love with the Golden Retriever so I thought this was my answer. DH definitely did not want a Golden again (we lost our 13 year old Golden to bone cancer a few years ago). This little dog looks like a Golden but she will be smaller and hopefully shed less than a full size Golden. She currently weighs 13.8 lbs. I am guessing she will be about 35 lbs give or take a few.

I think because she is a little older, she has given us no trouble. She started with an 8 hour car ride home with strangers and she took it really well. She goes into her crate at night and sleeps for at least 8 hours without a peep. She is not a "biter". She does like to chew on the appropriate things (bully horn, himalayan, rope toys) but not on me. The worst thing about her is her current food. The breeder was feeding her Puppy Chow. Oh how I hated buying that at the grocery store! Every time I put it in her bowl it makes me cringe. I feel like I am feeding poison to a baby! But that will all be over soon.

Daphne & Lucy seem to be getting used to her. Lucy really doesn't care much either way. She doesn't play much with toys or other dogs anyway so for her, life just goes on. Daphne was a bit indifferent at first. As my daughter says, Daphne is the Princess and more than a little spoiled! But she has started warming up to her. She always had to try so hard to get Lucy to play with her and that rarely happened. So now Daphne will have a playmate. She loves to run so she tries to get Pippa to chase her. Daphne is a very fast runner though so Pippa has a struggle to keep up with her.

My biggest challenge will be to try to get three Doodles to look at me AND to stay in place so I can take their picture. I'm starting Pippa's training early but this is the best I could get so far.