Roxy
We've been dog owners for over 30 years now, and have always enjoyed the dynamics of having two at a time. When we lost our 15 year-old Chocolate Lab Abby last December (the fourth in a line of Labradors), our four year-old Zoey became the lone queen of the house.
Zoey is the most energetic dog we've ever had. Half Labrador, and half Labradoodle, she was a real challenge as a puppy: I even wrote about her at the time: CLICK HERE for the "Pupzilla" story. She's grown into a good sweet companion, but still has energy to spare. After some thoughtful consideration, and what some may think a crazy idea at our age, we decided that she needed a companion!
Enter "Roxy", an eight week-old cutie that we adopted a couple of weeks ago. She's a miniature Labradoodle, expected to be about 30 pounds when full grown - big enough to accompany us on morning hikes and snowshoeing, but a size that we can hopefully manage if she lives out her life expectancy as we age into our 80's and 90's. Just as importantly, she's still got that Lab personality and she DOESN'T SHED!
We were of course a bit concerned about Zoey's reaction to the little interloper: it's one thing to get along with other dogs at doggie day care; it's different when one moves in on the family dynamic and starts running around the house with all of the favorite dog toys.
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| Zoey's attitude in the car as we brought Roxy home could best be described as "weighing my options" |
Within a week, however, the two were becoming good playtime companions. Zoey has even surprised us with what seems to be a natural "motherly" talent for teaching Roxy her boundaries. For her part, Roxy has a mellower disposition than Zoey did at her age, making things a little easier for all.
All that said, having a puppy in the house is still exhausting (and glad we did it now before getting any older)! The mornings begin at 5:30 with puppy squeal wake-up calls; we're spending extra time and energy running around outside with both of them; and we're on constant watch that Roxy doesn't decide to chew on something inappropriate or dangerous. We've had almost daily visits from friends that want to meet the new pup, while the house itself is in a constant state of chaos with dog toys strewn about and tasks interrupted when puppy's duty calls.
And so, in the interest of conserving my energy, I will end the story here with a couple of pictures of our pups in action.....but scroll down for another story about our town's connection to a city in Ukraine.
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Randolph-Ukraine Connection
Back in the 1990's, some citizens of our town of Randolph established a "sister city" connection with the town of Myrhorod, Ukraine. Some of those same folks revived the connection earlier this year with "Project Dove", an initiative to send medical and other supplies to Myrhorod as the war rages on in Ukraine. Here is a video of the project's success: CLICK HERE
