The Decision is Made

The very writing of this blog makes it obvious that I ultimately made a decision to get a puppy! I certainly did not wait until I finished reading all of those books! The mere reading of the first several books moved me in a positive direction and I then began the task of who, what, where, and when.

My first objective was to find a puppy and that meant I needed to find a breeder. There was a highly regarded, local Golden retriever breeder we had met years ago, in 1976. Her full name wasn’t in the phone book, so I Googled her just to see what might come up. The entire Google concept is mind boggling to me but in a moment, her picture came up, not that I actually recognized her after thirty plus years! 

Link

                               Shilo's Heavenly Day Dream UD WC OA OAJ JH RE VCX                                
                                                            By Sonic out of Shilo's Bet On It
                                                          Bred by Jennifer Krawsczyn
                                      Owned by Tom and Joanne Hell and Jennifer Krawsczyn
                                       Dream got her CD and CDX in three straight shows,
                                            completed a WC and a JH leg in one weekend,
                            and had many first place wins and other placements with her agility legs.
                                                       Congratulations!!

 
Jill’s local address was not listed nor was her phone number, but I explored around that website and bookmarked it for future reference.

I picked up our local phone book and although her name wasn’t there, luckily for me, there was only one listing for her last name – it was make or break. Fortunately, it was make and after several rings, Jill answered! I introduced myself hoping that she would remember me; no such luck. Gives you an idea of my import in the community! Nevertheless, keeping my personal offense to a minimum, I inquired if she was still in the Golden retriever breeding business. Not exactly she replied, she did happen to be a co-owner of a bitch that was a member of someone else’s household. Coincidentally, that bitch was to be bred that very weekend and if I were interested, she would give my name to the breeder and they would get in touch. Jill calculated that gestation plus eight weeks post-partum would translate into a mid August take-home date. I am the type of person who may consider a decision, wait and consider some more before I am comfortable moving forward. But once I do make that decision, I am in fast forward motion and accelerating! I was disappointed that the delay in getting a pup would be over four months, so I said I was interested, but in the meantime I would keep looking. 

I went back to the bookmarked website and it was Harborview Golden Retrievers – located in Erie, PA – a four hour drive away. The website showed impressive Golden retrievers but I was not quite ready to fill out their online Puppy Questionnaire. 

Link

Several days later I was completely ready to say “Yes” to a puppy and went back online to submit my Harborview questionnaire. I received a very positive email response from Jennifer Craig who is the person behind the dogs. She gave me a good overview as to her philosophy regarding the breeding and raising of puppies, specifically Golden retriever puppies. She mentioned that she had recently bred Pebbles, a two year old bitch and the puppy take-home date would be the first weekend in August. She also related that I could not go wrong sticking with Jill Masemore. Since the timing was still four months away, I replied that I was definitely interested, but I would keep looking. I was still hopeful to find a puppy with an earlier take home date and a breeder that was not so far away!

I searched the internet, inquired as to the availability of a litter of puppies, but came up dry. In the meantime I had a number of questions regarding some of the information I was gleaning from my initial reading and several emails went back and forth between Jennifer Craig and myself. I felt I had found a “kindred spirit” in Jennifer and I let her know that I wanted to be a member of her group getting a puppy from this next litter. Jennifer mentioned that no money needed to change hands until the puppies arrived, and at that point a deposit would be required to reserve a pup.

In retrospect, the fact that there was a significant time delay between the decision to get a puppy and the actual acquisition, worked to everyone’s advantage. Reading, watching, observing, and shopping put me in what I considered to be an ideal situation to be as successful as possible with this soon to be new member of our family pack. 

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