::Griffblog::

For almost a year know we have been searching for a dog to join our family.  Our daughter has wanted one for many years and we chose to wait until she was old enough to take some responsibility.

Earlier this year we started the search for a suitable breed and by luck one day whilst out walking we came across what we all agreed was a lovely looking dog.  Chatting with its owner we discovered it was a Lakeland Terrier.  Further research revealed this was an ideal breed, good natured, intelligent if a little ‘lively’ and the size we were looking for, smaller than a labrador, larger than a toy dog or Jack Russell.

We though that deciding and agreeing on a breed would be the hard part but we were wrong!  Lakeland’s are a rarer breed nowadays having fallen out of the mainstream and so locating a dog was not easy.  We wanted a bitch and originally set out to locate a red. Typically these are the rarest, most being black and tan.

We joined the breeds club, bought numerous books on the breed and became closet experts without ever having owned any of the dogs!  Months passed, a number of potential litters came and went with no bitches being born.  We gave up hope of locating a red but even then we were no nearer finding one.

And then we were lucky enough to locate a breeder on the KC list who had just had a litter of pups and had a bitch.  Emails were exchanged and questions asked on both sides and having looked at a raft of photos we were delighted to shake on the deal.

And so we will at long last be travelling up to Cheshire to collect her on Saturday. Named ‘Lucky’ by our daughter whose dog it will be, she is now 10 weeks old and one of six, three girls and three boys.  Appropriately (as I am partial to a glass of malt whiskey on occasion) they were all named after single malt whiskeys.  Although ours has the family name of ‘Lucky’ her KC name is ‘Scapa’ which I rather like!

We’re all getting more excited by the day.  Having been regular visitors at Pets at Home in recent weeks we now have a long list of essential equipment including leads, car harness, cage, feeding bowls, bedding etc.

For now I’ll leave you with a few of the photos we have pre-collection.  Be assured there will be many more once she has settled into the household!