Whiskey the Dog

Still on the theme of getting to know us............

Our latest family member - Whiskey - has only been with us for 2 months and as we often say he is the funniest looking Labrador we have ever seen, and behind that phrase lies the story of how Whiskey came to join us.

You see for the last two years Luca had been begging, on at least a weekly basis, for a dog. As in his words "every boy should have a dog mum". It took Armand and I though 2 years to come round to his way of thinking. So once we had hesitantly said "we would see" to the idea of a puppy the debate began over which breed the dog should be.

Now my family in England have always had Labradors - the latest being Charlie a 3 year old Chocolate Labrador. And as we know from experience that Luca is fine around Labradors and they don't seem to affect his asthma I felt this was the only dog we could possibly have. After browsing through several breeders' websites the boys were also taken in and truly hooked by endless photos of Labrador puppy litters playing in gardens or snuggled up to their mums. The 3 of us were soon a lost cause!!!

Armand on the other hand had always had rescue dogs in his family and was just as insistent that any family pet needed to be a rescue dog.

The dilemma being: How many Labrador puppies were queueing up in animal rescue centres to be adopted? Answer: Zilch!!!!

So we found ourselves at an impasse, or so we thought until just before Christmas when we spotted an advert in a pet shop listing dogs available for adoption in a local rescue centre, one of whom was a 2 year old female golden Labrador called Bayley. Well Bayley sounded like the answer to the whole family's prayers. The only small snag as we saw it was that we were about to go away to stay with family for Christmas and arriving with a brand new dog in tow did not seem the best recipe for an easy and relaxed family Christmas. So we decided to enquire about Bayley on our return home on 27th December.

After a great few days spent celebrating Christmas with some of our English relatives we returned home, unpacked the car and set off to the rescue centre. On the way there I repeated the mantra I had been chruining out all Christmas.

"Now remember everyone we are only going to get a dog if it is a Labrador. It can't be any other breed. And we are only coming tonight to have a look, there is no question of us returning home with a dog now, we need to prepare ourselves before adopting a dog and so on and so on."

Well 20 minutes later we found ourselves safely back in the car, with 2 very excited boys strapped in to their car seats , a dog bed, sack of dog food, blanket, lead, collar and 2 bowls safely stored in the boot and on my knees a rather frightened and trembling mutt whom we have come to know and love as Whiskey..the funniest-looking Labrador we have ever seen!