Welcome Hank..............

I'd like to introduce you all to Hank, the newest member of our family.  Isn't he gorgeous?  Hank is an Irish Doodle, Dad is an Irish Setter and Mom is a standard Poodle.  Hank was born on October 26, 2017 and was adopted on January 14, 2018.  He is so wonderful and we are all a bit giddy over him.  I mean we stare at him and think every little thing he does is marvelous.

I wasn't really intending on getting a puppy quite so soon.  I have been watching adds in the paper and looking at the thousands of websites out there.  Nowadays you have to fill out applications online and put down deposits not really knowing what puppy you will get and when of course.  I was really overwhelmed by it all.  When we got Max we saw an add in the paper, called up and drove a few hours north to get him the very next day.  There was a litter of 7 pups and Max picked us out the second we got there.  Now it is not that simple.  I have been looking and wondering how to make it a bit easier when I saw an advertisement in the paper about Irish Doodle pups.  I had never heard of them so I looked them up and was just amazed by their cuteness.  I called, left my number, and got no call in return.  I let it go thinking they were all taken but then the next Sunday there it was again.  I started to see it every day and last week I called again.  I immediately got text messages telling me there were four pups, one black girl, one black boy, one blond boy and one rare chocolate brown boy.  After a bit of discussion texting back and forth on Friday evening, we asked to see them and it was arranged for last Sunday, when Mr. 20 could drive over and join us.  Can I say that when we saw this little boy our hearts collectively melted?  He stood out in a sea of dark squirming puppies.  He just sat there looking at us, like saying finally you are all here.  My husband picked him up and Hank snuggled right in, he was passed to each older boy and finally to me, and frankly we didn't even have to look at the other ones.  They were cute and all but we had found our boy.

It is funny, Max left such a hole in our hearts when he left us.  Hank, with his brown nose and deep green eyes is set to fill that hole up again.  He won't be Max, we wouldn't want that, we want him to just be Hank.  We are a better family with a dog, does that even make sense?  We are softer and kinder.  We make silly sounds and talk in baby voices and get all sappy and silly with a dog.  Little Buddy is beside himself excited.  They wrestle and Little B gets jumped on and his ears nipped at, we are trying to put a stop to that but Hank is a baby after all.  Little Buddy and Hank will grow up together, every little boy or girl needs that uncompromising, unconditional love.  We all do.  Be prepared for puppy overload my friends, I mean how can you not take a million photos of this adorable boy?  

My oldest son named him just in case you were wondering.  Only after we had decided on the name did I tell him what a hank of yarn was.