Welcome home, Winston!
Welcome home, Winston!
Welcome home, Winston!
Welcome home, Winston!
Welcome home, Winston!
Welcome home, Winston!
Welcome home, Winston!
Welcome home, Winston!
Welcome home, Winston!
Welcome home, Winston!
I hope you will join me in welcoming the newest addition to the Temptalia family: Winston Wiggleston! He arrived at his furry home last Tuesday and we enjoyed the warmth and life he brings to our home while getting used to having a puppy in our lives again. It’s been 13 years since we raised puppies and Winston definitely keeps us busy!
He’s an exuberant pup who pretty much has three modes: eat, sleep, and play. He is definitely food motivated as you can expect from a lab! He tends to play for about an hour, then nap for an hour … rinse and repeat. He’s also a lover of all things cloth … like curtains, clothes, towels, blankets and floor mats. We can say he’s a happy, goofy puppy who is curious and likes to explore. We picked him up from his flight maid on Tuesday afternoon and he was happy, not at all scared, shy or (seemingly) stressed from his trip to meet us. It was like new! New! New! must stay awake! for everything new!
He enjoys a good seat. That is his standard position, and sometimes he happens to sit down after getting mixed up somewhere and tilt his head towards us. He prefers to go to bed tired and curl up to go to sleep. If he loves beds, he has come to the right place! He is a cute boy, albeit incredibly quirky (mouth first for all the things), who fills our home with love and laughter in a way only a dog does.
I didn’t know how I would feel if I got another dog after Mellan’s death. He was my first adult dog, and he really was the first dog I felt connected to (and felt connected to). My paternal grandmother was so broken after losing my father’s children’s laboratory that she never had a dog again. My parents lived a month before going from zero to three (my mother said, “Don’t get three like me!”). I’ve had some friends and extended family members who got another dog within a few months of losing their furry family members in the past.
Immediately after Mellan’s death, I felt like I would do it again without question. The sadness of losing him was nothing compared to the joy and love he gave me in the 13 years that he lived. While I’m not particularly impulsive, I can be impatient when I’ve made a decision about something. I’ve researched responsible breeding and breeders for several years, what to look for and the like, and with impressive pedigrees, puppies are often reserved well before they are born. I decided it would be perfect to leave bail sooner rather than later as I knew that if I was really not ready, I could always step back, which we obviously didn’t! This would ensure we had enough time to research and choose the right pup – no pressure, no stress, no emotional decisions.
Ultimately, it really helped me overcome my grief and focus on moving forward knowing that Winston was in the starting blocks. It made me feel that one day we will have that feeling back home. I’ll say good morning and snap another nose. Mellan’s legend has grown every day since his death, and we miss him in ways that are difficult to express, but he was always the dog that played and tried to make you laugh when you were sad. I know he would have wanted us to find a way to laugh and smile again!
We bought Mellan from a backyard breeder who we now know wanted to do my research and learn more about the parents, their health, and the health of grandparents and great-grandparents of any future puppy. Labradors have two builds; There is the blockier show style (often referred to as “English”) and the leaner field style (often referred to as “American”). Field laboratories are work laboratories that can often respond better to training, focus on their handler, and be more energetic. We were lucky enough to find a litter to go home about three months after Mellan’s death. This seemed like – possibly – a reasonable amount of time to process some of our grief for Mellan.
Watching Winston and his siblings from birth up to eight weeks (when Labrador pups usually go home) was an extraordinary experience. There were only three boys and we were the third male choice so we tried very hard not to fall in love (we joked that we got the “leftover” puppy the best way and honestly we did Mellan chosen because he had a block point on his ear for us to track … and he turned out to be an amazing boy). That being said, I was so attracted to Winston from the day he was born; He was Mr. Blue, and anyway, every time I saw him in photos or videos, he was pulling on the strands of my heart. The three boys were all lovely puppies and we would have no doubt fallen in love with one of them, but in the end we had our “first” choice! 🙂
Mellan was a puppy before we all had great cameras on our phones, so as I get older, I’ll be taking MORE photos and videos of this boy than I will of Mellan. You can find him on Instagram, @winstonwiggleston, which is 50% for my mom so she can easily find all of his photos and videos. 😂
Thank you to everyone who gave me advice, contacted me, and gave me words of comfort after saying goodbye to Mellan. The opportunity to share so many memories of Mellan over the past few months has helped me a lot in my grief, and I am so happy to have such understanding readers who have given me this space.
