Pupppy Trial

I started looking for a new dog right away--all our reasons for getting a dog were still there, and my way of coping with the sadness of losing Josie was to find something else to replace her. Through Oregonlive.com we found a listing for a 5-month-old Labradoodle mix. His mother is a standard poodle and his father is a labradoodle/retriever mix. What we liked in his picture, though, was that his fur looked more like a retriever than a poodle (although Nolan wasn't too excited that the dog is a "doodle"). He is black with some brown highlights. In the sunshine, he has an almost plum-color to his fur. His breeder is selling him because she had hoped to breed him, but then he started shedding a little bit, which means she couldn't sell his puppies as shed-free. All of this made for a great deal for us! We met the breeder and Berkley (although we want to change his name) in Troutdale on Wednesday evening. Poor Berkley was so scared! We couldn't really see much of his personality because he was so nervous, but I was impressed by how much he clearly loved his breeder. The breeder agreed to a 14 day trial period with him, so if he doesn't take to us we're able to return him. The poor thing was very nervous and frightened last night, but gradually took to me. For some reason he's very distant with Nolan, but we're slowly remedying that by having Nolan give him cheese (his favorite treat as we've discovered). Wylie and Sophie have actually warmed up to him really quickly. Within a half hour of being introduced to him, they both were bathing themselves and chasing bugs within 5 feet of him! Berkley was so scared of them he tried to hide behind our vertical blinds! If he keeps progressing the way he has this evening, he could turn out to be a great dog! We'll just have to make sure he passes the kid-test.