The spice of life

As Evan and Ethan got older, one recurring theme seems to pop up in their little head-I want a dog !! As a dog lover and someone who grew up with dogs, I want a dog too. So Evan, Ethan and I teamed up to convince Clara it's a good idea to have a dog, since taking care of two kids and cleaning up after me probably wasn't enough work to keep her busy :P After a year of persuasion and writing a bunch of empty promises (yes, I will take care of her, you don't have to do a thing) We finally decided to get a dog. The original intent was to get one from the pound, coming from the US, where we can get stray dogs for free, I got a sticker shock when I went to the Vancouver pound to find out it costs $500 to adopt a stray dog. $500 !!! The government evidently decided it was a good idea to keep the dogs in the pound instead of letting them go to loving homes, another policy victory where big brother over rules. At any rate, we then started trying to decide which breed we wanted, my last dog was a Rottweiler and she was an awesome dog, so I really wanted another Rottweiler; Clara thinks Rottweilers look too mean (which I counter argued they have a really soft heart), Clara's suggestion was we get a Labrador. Realizing negotiating with the spouse is often like trying to pass a bill in the US Senate, I had to do my share of pork barrelling. So a deal was reached, we were gonna get a Lab. Once the breed was decided, next come the color question, the choices were Yellow, Black and Chocolate. Both of us loved the chocolate, quick decision. So we started to look online and just happen to find a breeder on the Vancouver Kijiji site. The breeder is in Richmond, and for $650 we get a puppy chocolate lab. So the four of us called the breeder, hopped into the van and headed west. We got there early enough when the pups were only 4 weeks old, since we were the first ones there, we got our pick from the eight puppies. Since they all looked the same to me, Clara picked out her favorite one. We put our deposit down and waited another 5 weeks before we picked her up. On the way home, we were trying to decide on the name for the dog. CoCo popped into my head, Chocolate Lab, CoCo, not to be confused with famous asian singer Coco Lee. Anyways, here is CoCo's pics at 4 weeks and 9 weeks when she got home.