Cheese: Probably going to be the most spoiled puppy in the world

This Christmas has been quite difficult to face without Bran and I have to admit that I've been finding it a struggle to get into the spirit  :o(

However, I temporarily forgot about the incredible support network that I have around me and their amazing kindness and thoughtfulness and how well they all know how to make me smile  :o)

From my lovely friend Emma, Cheese already has their first ~ personalised! ~ puppy dummy and dummy keyring

From my lovely friend Jo, a special coffee mug to remind me of the good things to come

From my lovely friend Tina, a necklace to keep Cheese close to my heart

And just a sample of the gifts that Moss and Casey received from us and our friends! The box full of treats was out in the kitchen  ;o)

Not to mention the constant access to the doting "grandparents" who have been on hand 24/7 to play tug with Moss and to cuddle Casey as well as the bowls of turkey and leftover veg that have replaced the usual meals!

What a very lucky pup Cheese is going to be  :o)

Evaluating priorities and a new obsession??

I had a conversation with Kate recently that made me stop and have a really long and hard think about my priorities in the puppy that will one day be Cheese.

She sensibly pointed out that as the sire of Lara's litter has not yet been decided upon, there are no guarantees as to what colour the litter will be. She knows that I had my heart set on a yellow boy but basic labrador genetics come into play. If she chooses a black boy who carries no yellow, then the litter will be all black (as that's the labrador "default" colour); if she chooses a black boy who carries yellow then the litter may be 50/50 black and yellow; if she chooses a yellow boy then the litter will be all yellow.

I spent an entire night tossing and turning and trying to decide what I needed to say to her. Then, as the sun rose, it struck me that I had prepared for myself a very specific and detailed list of what I wanted from a breeder, some things I was prepared to compromise on but most I wasn't. In Kate and the wonderful Ardenbrook, I had not had to compromise on a single thing, thus far, even on the things that I had really expected to have to compromise on.

And suddenly the sleepless night of fretting seemed completely and utterly ridiculous, because I realised that my number one priority was that Cheese be a happy, healthy puppy born to Lara and raised by Kate.

So. Decision made. Cheese will be what Cheese will be. I still have a slight preference on Cheese being a boy, but if my yellow boy turns out to be a black girl, then so be it. And they will still be called Cheese whatever the sex or colour. I imagine the name will be explained many times anyway, it'll just be a slightly longer story if Cheese is black!  ;o)

Of course, if Cheese DOES turn out to be a black girl, then she will fit in just perfectly with the pattern for every other plan I've ever made for having dogs! Our first dog was going to be a golden retriever, but turned out to be a 7 month old lurcher. My second dog was going to be a saluki, but was actually the world's largest collie. I wasn't having a third permanent dog at all, until I met Flora. We were never having terriers, and then along came Hugo, and, eventually, Moss and Casey. Bran was the only dog who was ever exactly what he was supposed to be  ;o)

In amongst all of the serious thinking that I've had to do, I've also been desperately missing my darling Bran as Christmas approaches and trying to accept that I have yet another dog who will not be receiving presents this year  :o(  I have done several things to cheer myself up. The first is to send presents to all of Bran's most special doggy friends ~ all thirty-five of them! The second was to buy Cheese a Christmas present that won't be able to be used until they are almost fully grown, but hey ho!!

My lovely friend Dee spotted this collar and how could I not get it???

Christmassy Cheese Collar

I bought it from Rescue Me Collars in America and I was supremely impressed with them from the moment I placed my order. It cost only £13 for the collar to be made in a large size AND to be posted from the US to the UK ~ bargain! Rescue Me Collars also ask you to nominate a rescue when you place an order and when a rescue receives 6 nominations, they will send them a free collar ~ isn't that lovely? The choice of fabrics is vast so you'd be bound to find something very special and unique for your dog  ;o)

And then the collar arrived and I was even more impressed. Firstly, it was wrapped in red tissue paper and tied with a green ribbon and looked just lovely. Secondly, a Christmas card was included with my invoice. You have to remember that the lady who made the collar knows nothing of my Cheese plans, but the Christmas card had a yellow labrador puppy on it! She had also written a very lovely and personal message inside the card thanking me for ordering and telling me how much she likes this fabric and wishing me a happy 2013. I will most definitely be recommending them and have no doubt that I will need to be ordering more collars very very soon.

For the record, Cheese now has a baby puppy collar, a bigger puppy collar and a matching lead, plus this Christmas collar for when they are growed up. Too much, d'you think??  ;o)

Double Take!

This afternoon, Sophie, my mum and I went to visit Whitehall Garden centre in Bristol to have a look at their Christmas displays.

We often visit this garden centre as it's quite small, quite reasonable and very dog friendly. It will undoubtedly feature heavily in Cheese's socialisation as they have chickens free roaming, plus rabbits and guinea pigs in hutches, as well as lots of pushchairs and wheelchairs around and exciting things that can be sniffed but not nibbled.

I had a bit of a "moment" as I remembered all the times that I'd brought Bran with us to visit, but caught my breath as I spotted one of the gorgeous garden ornaments that they had for sale. I really had to do a double take as it looked so realistic!

It was very tempting to buy him so that I could have a yellow lab in my house/garden NOW, but at a smidge under £100 I felt that the money would be eventually better used on lovely things for a REAL dog  ;o)

What's in a name?

"Why on earth have you called such a cute puppy Cheese????"

This is a question I'm expecting to come up against quite a lot once Cheese arrives in our lives. And then "puppy" will be replaced with "dog" and it will (hopefully!) go on for 15 years or so.....

So, why Cheese?

The truth is that it started as a joke. I was having a very silly, giggly telephone conversation with my silly, giggly friend Jules and we were still being silly and giggly when we got on to the topic of potential puppy and then potential puppy names. We decided that the name should be food related so started trying out all sorts of yellow food as names: "Custard?" "Butter??" "Cheese???"

After a big giggle, Jules decided that she preferred the name Cheddar.

However, by the time it took her to get those words out, my head and heart had locked together and screamed "And the puppy will be called Cheese". Uh oh.

And so then the silly giggliness explored all the fun opportunities that were to be had with a dog called Cheese:

1. To start with, Jules has a yellow lab girl called Pickle and when we met up for the first time this year, we had to get this photo....

Branston/Pickle

...so now, clearly, we need to get a Cheese and Pickle photo  ;o)

2. It feels quite nice to have a pup called Cheese following my darlings Flora and Branston Pickle. All we need is a bread related option and we have the perfect sandwich!

3. Photo opportunities as we travel around the country for camping/walks/visiting, etc to places that have their own cheese named after them are immense. The easiest one will be to visit nearby Cheddar and take a photo of Cheese underneath the "Welcome to Cheddar" sign.

4. Training tricks could be brilliant using cheese related commands:

• "Cheese Twist" ~ spin
• "Say Cheese" ~ grin/show teeth
• "Squeezy Cheese" ~ hug
• "Cheese Spread" ~ lay flat

5. It's actually quite difficult to say "Cheese" in a cross voice so encourages positive vocal commanding.

6. It is very easy to elongate "Cheese" into a recall ie. "Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese".

If you can think of other positive reasons for calling my pupster Cheese, or have any other cheese related training suggestions, please feel free to share  :o)

Until real Cheese gets here, I have a pretend one who was a gift from my lovely friend Tina. He's not great at taking cheese related commands though  ;o)

Pretend Cheese

Cheese's First Gift

My lovely friend Mandy came to visit today with her boys: gorgeous black labrador Blue (who was Bran's bestest friend ever) and handsome springer Tom.

As always, she came bearing gifts: there were chewies for the puppies and the boys to enjoy, a 16 month yellow labrador calendar for me (yay!) and ~ sob ~ Cheese's first present.....

Teddy and blankie

Teddy

Mandy has put odds on it not lasting more than 3 days once Cheesy pup gets hold of it, so won't be too offended if it ends up in a soggy fluffy pile of ex-toy  ;o)

And then we had a little fun with Blue and Tom and a set of devil horns  >:o)

Devilishly cheeky Blue

Devilishly handsome Thomas

It's their shadows that make me laugh the most! Don't they look like they were enjoying themselves?  ;o)

First big hurdle

Well today was the today!

I woke up 2 hours before the alarm went off and sat tapping my toes until Sophie came home and we could leave. I had lots of excited texts from my lovely friends wishing us a safe journey and lots of luck.

My brain was just buzzing with excitement at the prospect of meeting Kate and Lara at last!

We hit traffic as soon as we left the house ~ grrrrrrrrrr! ~ and then there were roadworks on the M5, but we eventually arrived just 10 minutes past the arranged time. Phew!

Kate greeted us and then we had to pass the Squidge the cat test! Thankfully, she purred happily as Sophie stroked her head and then she joined us in the kitchen while we had a long chat over a cup of tea.

I'd secretly taken a list of 27 (!!) questions with me, but rest assured that I had hoped to cover the answers to most of them in casual conversation rather than by interrogation  ;o)

Kate and I chatted easily about lots of different topics ~ some related specifically to potential Cheese and some not ~ whilst Squidge tried her best to sneak on to the kitchen table. It was lovely to feel so welcome and relaxed and the time just flew by, but then ~ at long, long, long last ~ it was introduction time! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeek!!!

Kate brought Lara in and she is absolutely everything that I'd hoped for and dreamed of ~ beautiful and friendly and wiggly and beautiful. I could very easily have just scooped her up into my arms and smuggled her out to the car  ;o)  We spent some time fussing the gorgeous girl and then Kate fetched Kalli (Lara's 14 month old daughter) in. Kalli is adorable! She's a very different body shape to her mum as her dad is a working boy, but it was easy to see her beautiful mum in her too. She is bags of fun!

And then I could stand it no more and had to ask Kate directly if we would possibly be allowed on to her waiting list for a puppy from Lara....................and she said "YES"!!! Wooooooooohoooooooooo!!! I could have cried with relief. I was SO worried that she wouldn't like us or would think that we couldn't be trusted with one of her girl's precious puppies, but now I can sleep at night again and look forward to our gorgeous baby boy joining us in the future  :o)

And it is some time in the future, as Kate had warned us very early into our communications. She is hoping that Faith will be having a litter next Spring and then it'll be Lara's turn in 2014. Very kindly, she suggested contacting the Warringah kennels as they had been expecting a litter at the beginning of October and they'd be a good place to start if we wanted a puppy earlier. However, I feel so sure that Kate and Lara will be the best person and dog to give our pup the best of best starts that I have no qualms at all in waiting for them to have a litter.

I also feel that it'll do us all good to give our hearts some time to heal over all we've been through with our big dogs, before we bring another big dog home. It's very very strange to not have a big dog in the house after 8 years of constantly having at least one of them around, but we are all very much looking forward to the day when we can bring our Cheese boy home.

Kate kindly let us go out into the garden to meet Connie and Faith and the wonderful Summer girl and then we had a bit of a photo shoot with Lara and Kalli, so here are the results of that........

Lara

Kalli

Lara and Kalli

Thank you so much for having us, Kate. It was lovely to meet you and your gorgeous girls and we had a lovely afternoon x

Bottled excitement.......sort of!

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Only 2 more sleeps until we get to meet our potential puppy's mummy and human granny!

My camera battery has been charged in the hope that either me or Sophie will be able to stop fussing dogs and chatting long enough to get some photos  :o)

I need to collect my parents' sat nav tomorrow, but I have already programmed it with Kate's address. The car will also be filled with fuel tomorrow, so that when we leave home on Saturday we have no need to stop until we get there  :oD

I forgot to share before what it is that keeps me excited about Cheese (apart from the neverending thoughts and plans!): I decided that I needed to buy his first collar. Almost everything else that he could possibly need is either already here or already has plans in place to be borrowed, so I felt that I needed something tangible here to reassure myself that he will be here one day. That involved lots of discussion about which colour would look best against a boy's yellow fur and I eventually decided that chocolate would be perfect and was a nice nod to my Bran boy too. I found a pattern with Red Dingo that had chocolate backing with green spots, but I often buy Red Dingo stuff from a really lovely lady on Ebay whose shop is called Wagtails so decided to check what she had before I made a decision and that turned out brilliantly because she had a pattern that isn't available in the UK: chocolate with little green stars.

Cheese's First Collar

Soooooooooo I may have got a "little" carried away, but I really liked the design so bought a small collar, a medium collar and a medium lead. Eek! By the time he's a big enough boy to be in a large size, I can find a more mature design and lead for him, but the little stars will be lovely to see him through his puppyhood.

I've put the bigger collar and lead away for now, but wanted the baby collar on display somewhere prominent ~ where I could see it all the time. So this is where it is...........

Collar on Display

Just 2 more sleeps!