Let me tell you a story.
Noa and i have always wanted a dog. Both of us grew up with dogs. after university, we talked about it, but we were always living in other peoples apartments, and so we decided eventually to get ferrets, ginger and yogurt! several years passed, we owned our own apartment, and still, I was travelling a lot for work, we were flying internationally, and we did not want to subject a dog to living in an apartment. I know its both fine and possible, it just was not right for us at the moment.
One day in Vancouver we were at the kitsilano farmers market. we were each getting separate things, and we each saw this dog that we fell in love with. separately, we both asked the owners what it was, and when they told us a duck toller, we said a what? when we met up we each excitedly told each other about the cute dog we saw, and that it was a duck toller. of course once you know about something, you see them everywhere, and we totally fell in love with tollers. Then my good friend danny had a tenant move into his basement, and she had a duck toller and we got to play with her some, and this just re-enforced our love of the dogs.
But then we ended up moving to Israel. While getting settled there, again, the timing was not right, but after moving to the smaller village where we are now we decided that its finally time. We looked around, and lo and behold there are no tollers at all. We talked about adopting, which we also wanted to do, but we still really wanted to get a duck toller.
so last may, when we were in italy last time, i had somehow stumbled upon an italian breeder of duck tollers. we tried to meet up with them that time, but they were away at a dog show. so when we were looking for a puppy again this december, i thought i would check their website, and as it turns out, they had just had a litter december 15th. we emailed them, and they indeed had one puppy left, a girl out of a litter of 7.
Noa and i debated back and forth for a week about what to do, and eventually we decided we would take her.
Now, all of this was the background story… We decided two weeks ago we could not wait anymore, and to take a weekend in italy to go meet our puppy. we cannot import her until she is 4 months old into israel, and she just turned 3 months old. either way, we had decided to come visit, so last thursday we flew to milan, and drove down to modena which is the closest largest city. on saturday we drove to “Casa di Toller”, and got to meet our puppy for the first time.
We decided to name her Mango, and here she is!
[flickr id=”13197269993″ thumbnail=”large” overlay=”false” size=”large” group=”” align=”none”]
[flickr id=”13197276443″ thumbnail=”large” overlay=”false” size=”large” group=”” align=”none”]
[flickr id=”13197167255″ thumbnail=”large” overlay=”false” size=”large” group=”” align=”none”]
these are just iPhone pictures we took. i brought my camera, and have a whole bunch of puppy photos to process and upload. and once i do be ready to be inundated with puppy photos.
The litter she was born too had three boys and four girls. the three boys all went to italian owners, so they have all left already. the four girls are being sent to us, france, vancouver(a breeder there) and japan! what a international bunch of puppies!
so while there, we got to interact will all 4 of the girl puppies, and over twenty other duck tollers they have! it was such a fun day. we ended up spending much of saturday with them, and then we went back on sunday for an hour to say goodbye.
I think both of us have never had a more fun vacation than this.
tomorrow we drive to milan for the day, and then we fly home.
more to come soon….
OMG she is so ADORABLE!!!