Already 4 years ago when we moved into this house. We haven't had a dog in a long time. We have had 2 labradors in the past where we had to say goodbye to both too soon. Then my wife and I said, we never want this again, so much sadness. A dog is a pet, that's right, but also an important part of the family.
Our youngest son has often asked us if we wanted to get another dog, because he loves animals. We then tacked and said that when we lived in the new house we would get another dog, we have the space there and actually we thought it would be nice again.
We agreed that we would look for a puppy after the winter sports, so when we left our winter sports address for home he (our son) was already sitting in the back of the car on his Ipad looking for puppies hahaha.
He found a breeder in the north of the Netherlands, a breeder of Golden Retrievers. When we got home we called them and explained the story, they just had a female who was pregnant with a litter so that worked out nicely. We then made an appointment to meet the breeder and to see immediately what kind of environment the dogs live in, just to get a good idea of the breeder's motivation. Nowadays you hear so often those nasty reports about breeders who only keep dogs for the money and take poor care of them etc.
She lived in the middle of a residential area and had the dogs (4) running freely in the house, so that looked good. It turned out that they have a litter once a year because they enjoy doing it and love their dogs. (I personally don't have to think about that, a litter in the house, but good haha)
We were allowed to register for a puppy from the next litter, and then we did, it all felt good. We indicated that we would like to have a male and not a female. We were told that we couldn't choose that, she (the breeder's lady) would choose which puppy suited us best. Good in itself, but we really didn't want a female, so we said if we couldn't choose a male ourselves that it would end for us, no matter how difficult. In the end she agreed that we went for a male.
We visited the breeder several times during the 'pregnancy', and of course also after the puppies were born. So nice to see those little worms. In the beginning they see nothing yet and go to the mother to drink by feeling. Every week they get a little bigger and a little more active.
After a few weeks they were allowed to play in the breeder's garden. Yet one way or another they like to be protected, including here between the garden fence :P
Sammie (our son) was also allowed to come up with the name. Our pup was named Bassie, named after a Dutch Clown owned by the duo Bassie and Adriaan. I was and still am a big fan of that, and of course he knew that, and it also suits him perfectly.
Finally, after a long wait, Bassie was allowed to go home. We went to pick him up with the whole family. Of course he was allowed to sit on Sammie's lap in the car. Sometimes you hear stories about dogs that are or become car sick, luckily our previous dogs were not bothered by that and neither was Bassie.
Look at him, with his proud face :)
Along the way, of course, we stopped a few times to let him out, and that also went very well.
At home we of course had everything ready to welcome Bassie and to give him a flying start in his new home. We have of course been looking forward to his arrival for a long time, but he is taken quite abruptly from his familiar surroundings and has to get used to his new 'friends' and surroundings. And actually that went very well, he did some research and soon managed to conquer his own place. Of course all that newness and all those people is quite tiring, so he slept wonderfully in his own place.
Bassie found all kinds of places where he thought he could sleep well, and he did :)
We are now 4 years later and have experienced many fun things together with Bassie, in a next post I will of course continue with this. otherwise it will be a lot of puppy-bassie spam. :)