One of the greatest things about this job is getting to talk to great people and hearing incredible stories. I put a post on our Facebook page asking what people were doing to keep their puppers busy all day at home, I didn't expect this! When I first spoke to Nancy and Monica about Pearl's DawgTag, it was somewhere in the middle of the COVID-19 quarantine. I had no clue what they had just gone through.
Nancy explains it best:
Pearl is a lovely girl, but she came with a lot of baggage—she’s afraid of people, noises, anything she’s unfamiliar with.
When we first brought her home, we didn’t know whether we’d be able to keep her, even though she’s our fifth dog. She was not housebroken, and we couldn’t get her out of the house without her shaking, and she was not good on a leash.
We were fortunate to have the help of a wonderful dog trainer who trained both dogs and horses for the Toronto Police Services. Terry helped us enormously with Pearl, including helping us to accept Pearl for who she is.
We then took Pearl to Mother Knows Best for over six months of agility training, where Pearl gained a lot of confidence. Dorothy and Courtney also helped us accept Pearl for who she is and not to expect her to be otherwise.
We fell into fostering Pearl when we called the breeder to see about putting our names down for a puppy—our last dog, Roxy, had bone cancer and, even though we said we’d wait a year before getting another dog, we couldn’t bear to come home to an empty house.
We had seen a couple Barbets on one of our walks—we had never met one before—and asked the owner where she got them, which led us to the breeder.
Pearl lived with us as a foster dog for two years. She was bred for the second time with us in January and picked up in late February for delivery of her pups in March. After two weeks, the breeder brought Pearl back to us, saying that she had had a false pregnancy. Imagine our shock when Pearl gave birth, two days later, to a litter of five puppies at day 70!
Pearl gave birth on March 13, just as everyone was settling into COVID quarantine.
Our introduction to the COVID quarantine was pure joy, watching five puppies grow and taking care of them as they got older and escaped from their kitchen pen to wreck havoc on our floors!
Quarantine or not, Nancy, Monica and Pearl definitely had their hands full with all these little puppers!
Next week – Meet the Puppies!
Extra special thanks to Nancy and Monica for sharing their story with us!
Photo Credit: Monica Kulling
