A man's best friend

Growing up both Michael and I had dogs. Two true animal lovers we are. After we got married in May of 2015 we discussed the possibility of getting a dog, but later down the road of course. To our surprise we ended up getting one sooner than we had anticipated and so our journey begins...

Meet our current world, our fur babies! I'll begin with our first little girl who we got back in September of 2015. Lola-Jane is a full-bred Labrador retriever. We adopted her from dear family friends when she was 9 months old. A lot of people ask why she has a double name so I'll give you two reasons. In the South we take double names seriously and my girl is an all American southern girl. Yes, I said it my dog is Southern! My last reason behind her having a double name is because when we got her she had been named Lola. While it's a very cute name we wanted to personalize it a bit and name her something we had chosen. Being 9 months old she had already learned her name so we decided to add a second name to Lola in order for her to recognize it. This is where the name Jane comes in. We now have a dog that will answer to all four names: Lola, Jane, LJ and her full name Lola- Jane. Lola-Jane is now 2 years old and continues to warm our hearts as she did the first time we laid eyes

on her.

After just a year, we decided to get our second little girl. This time we planned to go through a breeder to pick out a puppy as we missed that experience with Jane girl. If any of you know my Michael, you know he is an avid sportsman. He loves to be in the woods and hunting. With that being said, he wanted a little hunting buddy. The breed we decided to begin looking into was the Boykin Spaniel. Michael grew up with Boykins and knew that they are great hunting companions. As he began the search for a puppy, he saw that one of his fraternity brothers had posted about Boykin-Springer puppies. The fraternity brother was acting as the middle man of his friend who had bred his Boykin with a Springer. Michael immediately began planning his trip to see the puppies located in Northern Virginia. Sure enough, he went to see the puppies the next weekend and came home with not one but TWO pups picked out! Not to worry, we didn't get two puppies. He picked out one for our family and another for my parents who we had somehow convinced to get one. Soon after, Michael and I drove to pick up the two little sisters at 8 weeks old to bring them to their new homes. What an exciting and fun day it was! My parents met us in Raleigh at our home to pick up Gabbi and Lola-Jane was waiting patiently at home for her new sister, Garland who is named after our hunting club in Garland, NC. Garland is now running around non-stop at 7 months old!

To say our lives have not changed since we brought both of our girls home would be a lie, but we have loved every minute of the craziness! Now Michael and I ask one another, "What would we do without them?" As I continue to blog about our journey you will find a lot of posts about our dogs as they add a lot of adventures to our story.

I may be biased, but they are the cutest! <3

XOXO

Robyn