A little over 5 years ago, we brought home a curly haired, chocolate brown, blue eyed girl and we made a promise to love her. Only a few weeks before Christmas, we presented her in a little basket with a bow to our then almost 2 & 3 year old boys. We joked at the time that bringing Jersey on board evened out our girl-boy ratio a little more and the boys are still quick to remind me, I’m not the only girl in the house anytime it comes up.
I remember taking her to puppy school in those early days. It felt like such a treat to leave the house one evening a week, skip bedtimes with the boys and get to pour my love into her.
As the last few years have passed, life has been rather hard on us. We have faced an overwhelming amount of loss, uncertainty and change. The metaphorical rug has been pulled from beneath us almost too many times to keep count, especially in the last few years. As we have used more and more energy to be resilient, get back up, show up well for our boys and keep going, sadly it has taken energy and time away from being able to pour into our Jersey girl. Of course her needs get met, but there isn’t any energy left for the extra love. The love she deserves.
This weekend, we made the most excruciating decision to keep our promise to her. A promise to love her through to the end. Keeping that promise means being really honest with ourselves. She is a fun-loving, sock-eating, happy and very energetic girl. Anyone who has had or been around a doodle will know what I mean. She needs a lot of attention, enrichment, exercise and love. She deserves a lot more than our family continues to have capacity for. It makes me so sad to reflect back on just how much we have been through the last five years. To see who we were then and who we are now. I am sad but I am also proud of us. It has been far from easy but we keep going. We keep making hard choices but ones that are best for us.
I almost chose not to share any of this. There is a lot of shame, heartache and the fear of judgment attached to rehoming a pet. This isn't how we ever envisioned things going for us or for her and it has been a decision that has taken a long long time to really come to. I think people assume it’s a decision that is made flippantly; a decision made because someone “didn’t know what they were getting into”. The only thing we didn’t know, is that life would get harder, a lot harder, and that in order to show up for ourselves, our health and our children, it would take a lot out of us. The easiest choice for us to make, would be to keep her home with us and try to live in denial about the fact that she is not getting to live up to her full potential. Then we could save ourselves the heartache, I could have avoided breaking my kids hearts this week, and I could side step the embarrassment and shame I will feel when others ask us where the dog is. But, we made a promise to her. We promised to love her. Loving her now, means finding someone with the patience, time and capacity to let her run, bounce, learn new tricks and thrive with. We love her enough to make that hard choice.
This weekend we met the most lovely, retired, dog-loving couple. They have a chocolate lab playmate for her to chase around and they spent the weekend trialling how they would all get along. They fell in love. Of course they did. The twinkle in her eye stole their hearts and her quirks didn't seem to phase them one bit. Sunday they brought her back and shared that they are in love and would happy to be the next humans to love on her. They brought presents for the boys and we all hung out on the living room floor getting to know one another. It felt just right. We can visit her and take her for walks down the road if we like and they will send us updates and pictures of her new adventures. Most importantly of all, our time and energy constraints will no longer keep her from getting all the attention she deserves.
We will spend the rest of the week with Jersey, loving on her and spoiling her. Next weekend we will all travel out to bring her to her new home and meet her new playmate. It feels sad and heavy but I know deep down in my heart it is the very best, most honest way to love her well. As Bennett said, it’s sad and happy. It's so sad for us but so so happy for her.
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