Our search for the “perfect” puppy!

After about one year of dating Kevin (almost four years ago), we started to talk seriously about marriage, family, and our future. One of the discussions that kept coming up was what type of pets we would like to have. We both had bunnies growing up, which to me was an interesting commonality as a bunny isn’t that popular as a pet where we live. But Kevin also had a plethora of other pets as well: fish, gerbils, a bearded dragon, and of course – dogs! I have never owned a dog before, but loved them nonetheless and wanted to own one more than ever.

We both decided that as soon as we were married we would find the best dog for us to add to our family.  We started researching right away and we thought we found the perfect dog: a soft coated wheaten terrier.  After contacting and visiting many breeders, they seemed like they could be the one for us! They are a medium breed, growing to be about 17 to 19 inches tall and 30-40 pounds.  They are very smart, energetic, and get along with small children.

We thought we were sold on the wheatens. Then we started getting more information on them.  Apparently, they tend to be a very stubborn dog (can be hard to train), sometimes have terrier aggression, need immense grooming if you are to keep the coat longer, and it’s hard to break the “wheaten welcome” – where they jump up on everyone that visits your home.  Kevin and I are a stickler for obedience. Some of the wheaten breeders even mentioned that this breed isn’t the best for first time dog owners.  Since this will be Kevin and my first dog together, we thought we’d heed their advice and keep looking.

A few months ago, Kevin’s grandparents brought home the cutest English Crème Golden Retriever puppy ever! The thing about this puppy, besides being extremely obedient and loving, is how adorable it is!! They have very light fur – almost white, and very dark features: black nose, mouth, and paws.

However, there are two problems: 1. Many people in my family are allergic to high-shedding dogs and they wouldn’t be able to visit us and our puppy. 2. We don’t want fur everywhere around the house.

Thankfully, there is such thing as a “hybrid” dog. These dogs are becoming very popular right now: labradoodles, maltipoos, yorkipoos, goldendoodles, etc.  The common denominator of these dogs is that one parent is a poodle, having very minimal shedding, which makes it perfect for allergy sufferers and shedding-adverse people like us. So, after meeting Kevin’s grandparents English Crème, a lightbulb went on in my head.  What if we could get an English Crème goldendoodle? Is there such a thing? Well, handy-dandy Google let me know there was such a thing! But they are fairly rare.  See, in order to get a true English Crème Goldendoodle, you need it to be bred by a poodle and an English Crème Retriever that has it’s roots in Europe. Many of the breeders say they have an English Crème Retriever, but in fact, they just have a light-colored retriever.

Why is this so important you may ask? There are many difference between the American and English Crème dogs.  Take a look a the graphic below to see:

In addition to the differences in the looks department, when it comes to the English Crème Goldendoodles, they tend to be calmer in demeanor than the typical American Goldendoodle, which Kevin and I prefer.

Even though they are fairly rare, we found a few breeders in our area! This past Sunday we visited our first choice breeder, and put down our deposit!

We are now on the list to add a female English Crème Goldendoodle to our family in June/July this year! It seems like such a long time to wait, but compared to the 4 years we’ve been thinking about a puppy, 4-5 months should go pretty quickly!

Here are some pictures of our breeder’s current litter, how adorable are they?!

We’ll try to be patient as we wait until summer to bring our little fur-ball home! =)