We are Jen & Pharaby, this is our story.
Part 2:
I met my puppy on July 3rd 2019 and we instantly clicked. She was a 9.5 week old Red Standard Poodle. She was perfect! Perfect for me & perfect for the job ahead. She was so full of energy, very brave and curious.
The breeder I got her from (Lake Sai Standard Poodles) does personality evaluations for each puppy to make sure they are matched with homes that suite their needs. My sweet purple collar girl was so brave for her evaluation, she walked on crinkly things, didn’t run from the vacuum when it started, was curious about a big metal toy car that was rolling by & totally chill about exercise equipment being used! Like I said, she was very brave & nearly fearless! The other puppy, blue collar boy, did great too but he was less excited about all of the tests. He did good but I would say he was a little more reserved and took his time to make sure things were safe before he was comfortable. The breeder also took all of them for car rides from the time they were tiny babies so they would be used to that. That was important to me because my senior boy, Osker, was not comfortable in the car for many years.
When the purple collar puppy picked me I was so excited, that was exactly what I needed. We were meant to be a team & we knew it from the second we met. So, after a long visit with her breeder & birth parents we drove home & begun our new life together.
When we drove off, my brave & fearless pup turned into a loud, barking, crying, worried little thing. I hadn’t made it to the end of the road before I was starting to worry a little. I had never been around a puppy who cried when we left their parents. She was LOUD! She seemed to be brave a few minutes before, what happened?!
We had to drive several hours to get home and about 20 minutes into our journey she stopped crying & went to sleep. I was still concerned but I had faith in her! Anytime she woke up she cried a little & barked but she was getting more comfortable. I picked her up by myself so I wasn’t able to hold her on the way home. If I could have held her I think it would have been better for her. This was going to be our life now, just me & her so she had to get used to letting me do things while she sat close by and just watched.
When we finally got home I let her walk around in the grass. She needed to potty & explore her new yard. She was back to being a brave girl! Over the previous days I had setup her new space, bowls, a new bed, new toys & blankets! Everything I could think of. When we went inside she was still brave, she sniffed all around her new home, got some water from her new bowl and she even went down the small step to the sunken in living room like a champ. That step was bigger than she was at the time.
She quickly decided she liked to lay under the kitchen table while I ate. That was perfect because as a service dog she would need to do that. She didn’t ask for my food, just stayed under the table to be close to me while I ate. She still does this & has never once asked for my food.
After a nap we went up to our bedroom so she could see her kennel, this was going to be where she slept at night, and I had a few new toys in there for her. She had a big stuffed turtle waiting for her, we named it “Myrtle the Turtle”. She LOVED Myrtle! Myrtle squeaked, crinkled & made a grunt sound. We played for a while and she was the happiest little girl. She was back to the brave and curious puppy I met that morning.
While we played I called her by a few of the first and middle name combos I had been deciding from. I was set on her first name but I wanted to make sure of her middle name before I told anyone. The name I loved, her first name, is a family name from the 1800’s. I had been writing this name down for years and bouncing around middle name ideas.
After we played I took some pictures of us together to announce her arrival. As someone who had recently gone though so much horrible stuff, it felt really nice to take time to celebrate a new beginning. This was the start of our new life, my freedom and an exciting new chapter for both of us!
