Several months ago Baby Bear started going on, asking for a dog.

Now, we are a cat family. We have 6 pedigree cats, and have never had a dog in our married life, although I always had dogs when I lived at home.

Not only did she want a dog, she specifically wanted a Chow Chow. This was compounded when she met a customer of my husbands, who owns a stunning Chow called Bella. BB was officially in love.

Fast forward several months and we helped my Mum in Law look after the Sisters Cavalier King Charles, Billy for a week. It was lovely to have a canine in the house again and I was genuinely upset when he left 10 days later.

Fast forward a little more to two weeks ago when Mum looked after a collie cross called Zara for three days. I was in my element and I again was upset when she left us.

More and more I wanted a puppy, but it had to be the right one. We started looking.

The husband is NOT a dog person but said if we could find a dog that would get on with the cats, and he wasn’t involved in feeding/walking/pooper scooping then we could get one.

YES!!!!

And so we began our research in to the Chow breed and what to expect and how they potentially react to cats and life in general.

I thought that a Chow would be a poor mix into the family as we are quite home based, and I thought it would be a dog with boundless energy who needed a lot of stimulation and excitement.

How wrong could I have been….

Chows are very solitary and aloof and are compared to the attitude of a cat! They are not overly energetic, prefering two 15 minute walks a day, and are happy being left alone to sleep the day away!

Obviously with their big fluffy coat they do need a lot of grooming, but then again with waist length hair so does Baby Bear!

We started looking into Chow breeders and found one around an hour away with male puppies; ideal for our needs. Fifteen weeks old, microchipped, all his jabs up to date and a European passport he sounded right what we wanted.

Breeders Photograph

We made contact with the breeder and arranged an appointment to go and see him.

Tuesday night we arrived at the breeders home. He was out in a front enclosed driveway with this little floofball. He was so happy to see us, licking and bouncing around.

I instantly fell in love. BB was a lot more reticent, as she was being realistic.

We had already discussed that this may not be the dog for us, and were not going to make any rash decisions. Little Chick just started cooing over him, her heart given away already.

We had a long chat with the breeder, asking and answering many questions. We went off to have a private chat and see what we all thought.

Of course Little Chick and I were all for it, but we waited for BB’s impressions as she was the most straight headed one of us. She plainly stated that he was perfect and we should go for it.

We returned to the breeder and agreed he was the dog for us. We left a deposit and arranged to go back on the Friday to collect him, so we could get the house puppy ready.

Queue a trip to Pets at Home where we duly got all the equipment; brushes, bedding, toys, food, leads and more. We were now ready to receive him home.

Smiley!

We left on Friday evening to do the 90 minute round trip to collect him. Putting him in the car, we genuinely didn’t know how he would react. We had puppy pads in case of an accident and a comfy blanket. Fingers crossed he wouldn’t be too distressed.

Distressed? If you can call going to sleep cuddled up against me distressed, then I guess he was!

I am in Love

He bounded into the house, scaring the cats. They seem to have reached a detente at the moment where they stay out of each others ways. We are hoping that they come to tolerate each other, possibly even friends. Watch this space.

Garden Time

So far today he went outside for around 10 minutes to do this toilet and since then has been asleep for the last three hours. Clearly it is a hard life being a dog. He has a lovely cage with a big bed, an oscillating fan due to the heat, but he seems more content to sleep on the cool laminate flooring.

Happy Boy

We haven’t taken him for a walk yet so that could be an adventure. Either way I am sure we will take lots of pictures.

So there you go, the latest addition to the house and by far the cutest,

Before and After his First Grooming

Theodore – Floofball extraordinaire.