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Adeline,

the

Brown Dog

 

The background

One unusually sunny April day in Pittsburgh, we met at a coffee shop-Steve the barista, me the customer with a hankering for a decent cup of cinnamon hazenut coffee.

Nearly immediately

We fell in love with everything about each other, including the people and the dogs each of us brought to our relationship.  A little over two years later, we got married.

Flash forward a few years (here's your sign)

 

Adeline

 

I have always loved Labrador Retrievers, and in fact, wanted one since I was a little girl.  Chocolate became my preference, and I wanted a male. We were not actively seeking another dog, (although we always have multiple dogs).  

 

One night at our favorite restaurant, I told Steve about a dream I'd had the preceding night, that we had a chocolate Labrador Retriever puppy, a girl, and we'd named her Adeline.  Steve got a peculiar look on his face, (which he will at times do), and told me that he'd passed a homemade roadside sign earlier that day advertising chocolate Labrador Retriever puppies. He'd called the telephone number listed, and was told there was only one puppy left, a female.  Since I'd always wanted a male, he didn't tell me about it earlier. 

 

Need I tell you that Adeline came home the very next day?  I think not.

After Addy grew past the adorable plump puppy stage, everyone in the house (other than me) thought she was a demon.  To this day, she still likes to run off with one of your shoes while you’re putting them on to leave in the morning, also, (everyone’s favorite), she nudges your elbow when you’re about to take a sip of coffee. 

 

Who'll be the next in line?

 

However, even though he still felt she was something of a nuisance, sometime in the first year and a half of Addy’s life, Steve fell in love with her enough to want a Labrador of his own, which brings us to. . .

Addy was a couple of months old when we enrolled in a puppy obedience class at a local training club.  We loved the instructor and the club and continued to attend classes and events, and we became members. 

 

One evening, we were sitting in the classroom area of the training facility waiting for our class to begin, and in front of us was a very flirtatious and adorable black Labrador by the name of Lucy, “sitting” with her humans.  When I say sitting, I mean she was inducing Addy into misbehavior (which wasn’t hard to do), and flirting shamelessly with us.  We fell in love.  We had met Lucy’s owners before and were familiar with them as local Labrador breeders, and seen and heard wonderful things about their dogs.  We asked if they ever bred Lucy, to please let us know, because we wanted one of her puppies!

We were patient, and in 2006 Lucy had puppies and we brought home Alfie…(Echoes It’s All About Alfie, to be precise).  He was Steve’s ten year anniversary present, and Alfie is the best present I ever gave, and Steve says he’s the best one he’s ever received.  He and Alfie are devoted to each other.  I pretty much just adore him, too.

Steve and his pal, Alfie, joined me and my best four-footed friend, Addy, in the quest for well-behaved Labrador Retriever.  We even instructed puppy kindergarten and basic obedience classes!

Steve had long had an interest in volunteer search and rescue.  Now, he had a canine partner to join him.  He and Alfie are on two search and rescue teams, and train with a few more, as a number of volunteer search and rescue teams in western Pennsylvania are allied. 

 

The line is getting longer.

 

As I mentioned, we both love Alfie so much - he’s the perfect combination of beauty, goofiness and intelligence.  We always want to have a part of Alfie with us.

That led us to thoughts of … you guessed it…breeding Alfie!

So, in 2010, along came . . .We'll tell you all about it soon.

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