Introducing Cooper!

It's been over two years since our beloved weaselful golden retriever Zoe breathed her last and went to the Happy Hunting Grounds.  We knew one day we'd have another dog, but for a while we were content to hang out in our dog-less-ness.  No doggie tumbleweeds rolling through the house.  No messes to clean up in the back yard.  No scratches in the wood floors.  No vet bills.  No worrying about racing home to let the dog out.  It was kind of nice.  But recently it began to feel a little empty.

Having raised two puppies once before, Steve and I knew what we were in for and decided we'd wait till next spring to get a new puppy.  The kids would have the summer to bond with it; and Libby would be going to kindergarten, giving me some time to train the puppy.  (Honestly, we weren't too excited about the prospect of going through the puppy stage, but we feel strongly that our kids should grow up with a dog.)  I realized I had no idea where to get a labrador retriever puppy around here (Zoe was a Buckeye, and Gabby had been randomly found wandering the streets of Charleston), so a couple months ago I started researching lab breeders.  That's when I stumbled upon the Lucky Labs Rescue.  I looked at their website, and it got me thinking: We don't have to get a puppy!  We could get a "ready-made" dog!

Once we settled on the idea of getting an older dog and not a puppy, the need to wait till Libby started kindergarten just sort of went away and our desire to have a dog in the house again got a little bigger. 

And so...I would like to introduce Cooper!

Cooper is a two- or three-year-old black lab.  But he acts like he's nine.  (That's how we know he's a Nichols at heart.)  He is a sweet, sweet boy.  He loves the kids.  He just flops down wherever we are in hopes of getting a belly rub.

Libby especially loves him.  Right away she showed him all the pictures of her recent tea party.  Cooper looked on with all the doggy interest he could muster.

We had Cooper here on trial for about two weeks.  When he first came to us, he really just wanted to flop in the corner and ignore us all...unless he was trying to dash out the front door whenever it opened a crack.  We figured he had "shelter shock":  he'd been in about four places (original home, pound, rescue foster home, and our home) in two weeks' time.  Poor boy. 

But each day he "woke up" and warmed up to us a little bit more.  By last week, we knew he was our dog, and I think I can say he knew we were his people.

So, today, it became official:  We signed the papers, and Cooper Rescue Dog is now Cooper Nichols!

Now we just need a middle name so I can start monogramming stuff for him.