Today is my sister's 22nd birthday (her golden birthday!). I always get sentimental on this day, remembering the day Jenna came into this world and all of the memories we've made together since. There is nothing like having a sister, and I consider it one of the greatest blessings in my life. Happy birthday, Jenna. Love you.
John feels the same way about Bob, his brother. They were tied at the hip growing up, with only a little over a year separating them. For both of us, our siblings are an instrumental part of who we are and who we will be.
I have been thinking a lot about our relationships with Jenna and Bob recently because we have been considering giving Emma the gift of a sibling. No, not a human one - a canine one.
We've actually been talking about adding a dog to our family for a long time. We tossed it around when we first got Emma, then talked about "What if?" during our honeymoon. Over the last few months, after finding out about an upcoming litter from the breeder we got Emma from, we seriously started weighing the pros and cons of #2. House breaking, training, playmates, boarding, expenses, more affection, more toys, less dedication to Emma...there is a lot to consider. In addition, the timing never seems quite right to make such a change to our lives. That being said, John came home 2 weeks ago and said over dinner, "Let's do it. Let's get another dog." And when I thought through everything I came back to two things: 1) I want to give Emma the love of a sibling and 2) I want more of the amazing joy we experience with Emma every single day. My answer to the question "Do we raise 2?" became a "yes" too.
So, I am so happy to announce that we will be welcoming an 8-week-old male puppy to the Ertel household on March 2. We are still working out all of the details, but we know the big things: We are getting another fox red Labrador retriever from Penara Labs, and it is going to be a boy. We researched boy vs. girl heavily and found that matching dogs of the opposite sex typically works bests (this addition is meant to enhance Emma's life, not make it stressful!). He is one of a litter of 8, one of 2 male puppies. We will know which one of the 2 boys will be ours in about a week, after the breeder does temperament testing at 7 weeks old. He is Emma's cousin (their mom's are sisters) and he is lighter in color than her, although he will darken with age.
Oh, yeah - and here are the boys. They are just a few days, maybe a week old here.
Here's a few of them with some litter mates (the lightest is the male in the first photo; the 2 light ones in the bottom photo are the boys), a few weeks older. The girls from this litter are absolutely darling (it was hard to listen to the advice of getting a male, in fact, although we stuck with being practical on this front!). Labs are such cute puppies.
I had a lot of hesitations about this move for our family through the last several months, and I said no quite a few times during the process described above. However, with a little prompting from John and my mom, I realized that I love having a dog and that joy times two is going to be a blessing for us. I could worry about it or I could jump in both feet. I am so eager now that we're actually committed to him and getting even more excited as I read up again on how to raise a puppy and sign up for training. It is a happy, happy day today...golden labs and a golden birthday.
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