Choosing Where Our Story Began

When we started thinking seriously about getting a golden retriever, I started my hunt online. I searched for breeders in Oregon first, but I cast a pretty wide net and looked through Washington, California, Idaho, Montana, and beyond.

I spent a lot of time reading websites and going through reviews from people who had gotten puppies from different breeders. When I came across Dawn’s website, the reviews were overwhelmingly positive, but that was not actually the thing that stood out to me most.

A huge portion of her website was devoted to telling the stories of puppies who had gone through health emergencies and the journeys she had taken with them to care for them. She wrote openly about the hard parts, the decisions that had to be made, and how deeply she cared about what happened to each dog. The way she wrote about all of her dogs, their personalities, their quirks, and the things that made each one special made it jump off the page that she truly loved them.

Then we discovered that she was only about 45 minutes from our house, and she also offered boarding.

That mattered to us more than I expected it to. With Bowser, we never found a boarding situation that we really felt good about. I always felt terrible leaving him, and when we picked him up he often seemed stressed and like he needed time to recover. It added another layer of guilt to leaving him at all.

The idea that our future puppy could have a place to stay where she would be surrounded by other goldens, including aunts, uncles, cousins, and familiar dogs, felt almost too perfect.

So even though we were still about a year away from when we actually wanted to bring a puppy home, we scheduled a visit with Dawn.

When we pulled up, we were greeted by beautiful, happy golden retrievers. I thought my heart might burst. They looked healthy, relaxed, and so obviously loved.

Then we met Dawn, and she was an absolute delight. She was overflowing with information, stories, insights, and knowledge. It became obvious very quickly that she was going to be an invaluable resource for all things golden retriever.

She let us meet the adult dogs, see the puppies, and welcomed us into her home so we could really get a feel for how she raised and cared for them. She spent a good long while talking with us and answering every question we could think of.

More than anything, she was incredibly open and honest. At one point she joked that she could never lie to people because she talks too much and would eventually tell them everything anyway. That openness made us trust her even more.

On the drive home, the three of us talked it over as a family. We had started the day just wanting to learn more and see if this breeder might be a good fit.

By the time we got home, we knew.

We would love for one of Dawn’s dogs to become the next member of our family.