Sweety

This week we have become the slightly hesitant owners of Sweety.

She is a ten year old french labrador retriever cross. Not a cross labrador retriever at all, bless her. She is a Sweety.

We have never had a dog in the family before and as is our way with decisions, have talked about having a dog in a general way for years and then done an 'oh go on then'. She was advertised on a website that hopes to join up dogs needing new homes with people needing new dogs. We have gone 'aaaah' at various puppies with soulful eyes but then decided that for a first effort we would be better off with a dog that knew what it was doing.

Sweety has been in a french home for ten years. Obviously well trained and eager to please. Then, apparently, one of the adults died, family downsized and dog put in the pound. From there she was rescued by Melissa who takes on two at a time that aren't obviously going to be rehomed from a viewing in the pound, and has them in a sort of half way house while she discovers what sort of personality they have and what they will need from their new home.

After a bit of tooing and froing with emails, we decided to go and meet Melissa and Sweety. This was talked about as coming to see Sweety to see if she was what we wanted but the assumption from the start was that we would take her with us. We went for a walk and had lunch with lots of chat and advice and then were sent off home with Sweety, a bag of food and a list of instructions. (And an email address and telephone number.)

Huge feeling of 'what have we done' and responsibility.

By the time we got home, we were all exhausted although she was as good as she could be in the car. But Sweety slept through the night and so far so good.