On July 24, 2013, our wonderful First Mate Daisy Doodle died. You can read about her here. For awhile we were wondering if we could ever have another dog on the boat, but after careful consideration, we realized it wouldn't be the same without a dog to share our adventures. Therefore, we started looking for a Goldendoodle puppy. While it would have been great to find one at one of the local animal shelters, almost all of the puppies and dogs we saw were some type of Pitbull mix. Our hearts were set on getting another doodle, and eventually we came across a wonderful Florida breeder, Moss Creek Goldendoodles. Luckily, they had two male puppies available from their latest litter. We chose one and named him Sailor. He will be coming to live with us on September 9, 2013. He'll have a lot to learn to take Daisy's place as First Mate.
Moss Creek offers Boot Camp for their puppies and we promptly enrolled Sailor in it. He is spending one month at the home of trainers Heather and Charanun. We get an email report and pictures each Friday. While it has been hard to delay his arrival on Seas the Day, we thought this would be a great start for him. It is vital that a boat dog has manners and is obedience trained, both for his safety and for the comfort of other people and dogs he meets on and off the boat.
One of the first things we will need to train Sailor to do is to "go" on the boat. On a catamaran, that means we will want him to use the trampolines on the foreward deck. He is being trained to ring a bell when he needs to go outside. He will continue to do that here, but it is a long walk down the dock we are on to grass. Therefore, we have purchased a small piece of artificial grass which we will place on one of the trampolines. Hopefully he will quickly learn to "go" there and then he will take a walk.
While we will always miss Daisy, we are also very excited to add Sailor to our crew.
While we will always miss Daisy, we are also very excited to add Sailor to our crew.
