How It All Began

Before we moved to Charlotte, we lived in New York and we owned a miniature poodle "Phoebe" and two cats "Pumpkin and Pepper". Unfortunately, we were unable to bring them with us because we had decided to live in an apartment temporarily until we found a suitable home to buy. We returned Phoebe to my mother-in-law where she would stay with her parents and took the cats to our cousin Debbie for safekeeping.

 

A few months after we left, Phoebe's mom passed away and we knew then that we would have to let her stay with my mother-in-law to help ease the pain of her loss. It was around the same time that Debbie notified us that Pumpkin was ill. Since, Debbie is very experienced in caring for animals we were okay with her reassurance that she would do everything possible to get him better. In the end, it was Pumpkin's time to go. Pepper missed Pumpkin so much that shortly thereafter, he died of loneliness.

 

Our original intent was to have all of our pets with us when we moved into our new home. At this point, we hadn't had a pet in our home for quite some time and we began to feel the emptiness. As we made preparations to move to our new home, we decided we would get a dog, but we didn't want just any dog. This dog had to be special.

 

Charlotte is a very pet friendly city. It seems as if everyone has at least one dog or cat. All at once, several of my co-workers were also thinking about getting a dog and that was the topic of conversation for months. Sure enough, my good friend and co-worker bought a dog. She was now the proud owner of a beautiful female Golden Lab. Soon thereafter, she showed me a picture of one of the cutest puppies I had ever seen. It was a "Labradoodle" and we talked very excitedly for hours about how I could purchase a Standard Poodle and we could breed the two dogs. That night we talked with our husbands and both abhorred the idea. However, my husband, who grew up with his poodle breeder mother, was all for the idea of breeding, but there would be no Labradoodles for us.

 

Let the Research Begin

For the next few months, I spent hours on the internet, reading books, talking to breeders and going to dog shows trying to make an informed decision. Yes, we wanted to breed dogs, but we also wanted the best possible pet for our family to love. The more research I did, the more I was convinced that a Boxer was for us. We were having numerous conversations at work about puppies and I inadvertently convinced another good friend to buy a Boxer. That was it for me. We were going to get a Boxer too!

 

After much more research, I decided to get Layla and I have never been happier with a dog in my life. I knew that we were on the right track to start a breeding program.