"Mom, can you come in here? I want to talk to you about something."
The seriousness in her tone sets off my mama bear alarm, "Of course, what's the matter?"
As I walk into the bedroom, I am expecting to see a sullen girl waiting to chat, but what I find surprises me.
She's standing in front of the computer desk with a Google Slides presentation queued-up smiling. She sees my perplexed face and politely instructs me, "Take a seat."
I ask, "Do you need to practice a presentation for school?"
Her grin gets wider, "Nope, this is something different."
She pulls up the first slide — Why we should get a puppy.
I roll my eyes and laugh. My daughter looks at me, waiting for my permission to give me her spiel.
"Fine," I say and pop my feet up onto the ottoman knowing my answer won't waiver.
Twenty-five minutes later, to my surprise, I tell her, "We'll think about it."
. . .
Here's the thing, my friend —
I've never had a dog.
I don't want a dog.
I don't particularly like dogs.
Yet, I find myself thinking, "Maybe."
I blame the fact that our family now includes this precious little man on my girls' project-based learning school.
Both of our girls recently switched to a charter middle school where giving a presentation is often a requirement at the end of each of their self-directed projects. In other words, they've gotten good at being informative and persuasive with facts.
She starts the presentation with my biggest concern — safety and the fact that her sister needed to be rushed to the ER after being bitten in the face by our neighbor's dog. While both of my girls still love dogs, the experience was traumatic for me. Being the anxious mom I naturally am, I'll never forget her face covered in confusion and blood.
She walks me through the research she's done on different dog breeds that are specifically social, playful, and kid-friendly. She talks about puppy desensitization, training schedules, and proactive safety.
She moves onto my next primary objection — the fact that I am completely and utterly allergic to dogs. I've been doing weekly allergy shots for five years to combat severe environmental allergies, including dog dander.
She walks me through why she's narrowed down the list of potential breeds down to a Goldendoodle. She talks about genetics, non-shedding breeds, and hypoallergenic dogs.
She proactively tells me "hypoallergenic" isn't an allergy-free guarantee but walks me through DNA research and breeders who specifically test for a shedding gene. She also talks about how the dog would only be allowed in certain areas of our home and proposes a vacuum schedule.
Then she proceeds to go cover all her bases through the remaining presentation slides.
She starts by walking me through the "initial investment" — the cost of a dog, vaccines, vet appointments, needed supplies, and food for a year.
She talks about offsetting the costs — she'll use her birthday and holiday money from Grandma and Grandpa to help pay for the dog, she'll use her allowance to help cover vet bills, etc.
She speaks on the family benefits of owning a dog — regular exercise opportunities, she references studies on the effect dogs can have on depression, and day-to-day joy.
She attempts to seal the deal — she commits to feeding the dog, caring for the dog, training the dog, and picking up a lifetime of poop.
She closes the presentation with a big smile and a list of potential local places where we could get a mini Goldendoodle in our state.
And finally, she ends her presentation, as she always does at school too, with a slide which reads, "Questions?"
She's covered every single one of my concerns so thoroughly that I'm left a bit dumbfounded. I don't have a single question.
After listening to a twenty-five minutes presentation, that must have taken hours to create, all I could say was, "We'll think about it."
. . .
And so over the next few weeks, I grill my daughter with questions, I verify her information, and I repeatedly remind her, "I will *NEVER* pick up poop if you're with me, no matter how many times you've done it."
I tell her, "Dogs can live between ten and fifteen years. You'll be heading off to college in five."
She looks at me, wise beyond her years, and says, "Mom, is that really a bad thing?"
We go to a family friend's house to meet their Goldendoodle. She's an absolute doll. They reiterate many of the points I've heard my daughter tell me over and over again. They talk about the ethical establishment where they got their dog; they show me a book the breeder has written, they tell me she's local.
Despite being in the middle of staging our house to put it on the market to sell (we've decided to flip our fixer-upper and downsize to a rental), I find myself saying, "Maybe."
Adding a puppy into the moving plans seems a bit insane, but she's so joyful already with just a maybe.
. . .
Then everything seems to fall magically into place and with each coincidence we realize that this little man was meant to be part of our family.
I call the recommended Goldendoodle breeder in March and ask if we get on the waiting list TODAY if it would be plausible to get a puppy by summer. She laughs sweetly at my ignorance, telling me her waiting list is over eighty people long and that late autumn is a more realistic timeline.
I sigh and tell her about my daughter. She pauses and starts asking me a quick series of questions:
Does it matter if the dog is male or female?
Does the fur texture matter?
Does the color matter?
I interrupt her and tell her the only thing that matters is that the puppy is healthy.
She sits silently for a moment and then tells me she was planning on keeping a pup from the most recent litter for her breeding program. She says she's willing to give it up for us, but she needs to know our decision by the end of the day. The required pick-up date is a week before my daughter's birthday.
I call my husband from the school parking lot and just like that we agree — we're getting a dog.
The girls overhear the conversation and go ballistic.
He was meant to be part of our family.
. . .
A week later, we get seven offers — YES, seven offers — on our house in one weekend. I'm telling you, home staging matters!
We had imagined it would take weeks and so we hadn't started looking at rentals in earnest yet. The above-asking-price-offers were set with fast closing dates, and so I immediately began calling for information about rental listings. What I didn't realize was that most rentals will not accept a dog under one year of age.
I began to panic until I got a call back about a beautiful rental home right near our girls' school. I explain to the landlord that we're getting a puppy, but I work remotely from home so he'll never be left unattended. He admits, he'd prefer not rent to a dog family, but he's willing to meet with us and show us the property.
When we are done walking through the house, we ask if he will take our security deposit and he admits, he's a softy for dogs and says yes.
He was meant to be part of our family.
. . .
We had to patiently wait for the puppy pick-up date, seeing photos of the litter, and wondering which of the adorable seven brothers would be our little man. Because we were skirted into the waiting list, having been gifted the breeder's slot, we were given "pick seven of seven." In other words, we would get the puppy from the litter that no one else wanted.
We secretly loved this.
Each week we'd get puppy growth photos, and they were ALL SO CUTE; we'd never have been able to decide which one to take home if we had to choose.
The night before people had to decide which dog they wanted to adopt, the breeder sent out info on each of the pups including their weight and temperament. When I saw the runt only weighed 1.5 pounds when the other dogs weighed 3-4 pounds, I knew in my heart he was going to be our guy.
When I reached out to the breeder via email concerned about his weight, she assured me he was in perfect health and that, my hunch was right, the littlest guy in the group was destined to be a Harrington.
He was meant to be part of our family.
Ironically, at puppy pick-up, some of the parents were frustrated because the kids were more interested in playing with our Baxter than their own puppy. His cuteness and playfulness won their hearts and ours over immediately.
As promised, my daughter cared for Baxter as he transitioned to his new home. She slept next to his crate and woke up with him in the night to take him potty. Both of our girls are in love with this, as my grandma would probably say, "Little Sheister." He's definitely a handful, but we're smitten.
. . .
The warmth of summer was in the evening breeze as the sun started to set. Tired from chasing a ball, Baxter snuggles in on my daughter's chest for a power nap. He snores ever so slightly.
As we get up to walk to the car, my daughter pauses with the puppy in her arms and quietly says, "Thank you."
A bit confused, I ask, "For what?"
She scratches his little head, "For this, for him."
And the gratitude in her voice makes my heart swell.
He was meant to be part of our family.
P.S. A big thank you to all the people who made this happen — to Rick & Kara for introducing us to their sweet dog and the excellent breeder, to Janice who had a soft spot for a girl who just wanted a healthy dog, to my parents who pooled together all our family's birthday and holiday gifts for the year into one cash gift to help cover the cost of this new addition, to Todd for letting us rent this awesome house with a brand new puppy, to Tiffany and Kate and Nina for answering 101 dog questions, and to my persistent daughter for helping us realize we needed this little guy in our family.
Six months later, we are still loving our adventurous pup. See more pics on his Instagram account — UnBusy Dog.
