Comforting Words

I know this might seem silly but who cares!

After a leisurely morning and breakfast, Robert and I decided to drive out to Bruderheim, a small town about an hour outside of Edmonton to meet Angello's children.

Regular readers will recall the story about Angello's first and only encounter.

Well that produced 4 offsprings - three girls and one boy.

The deal with my friend, the gentle giant whose name incidentally is also Robert, was that the pick of the litter would be mine. "If you decide not to keep it, then you will get whatever amount of money it's sold for," Robert assured me.

At the time of making this deal, I had mixed feelings about whether to keep my pup or sell it. "The money would be nice," I thought, given how much I had recently paid and continue to pay for medical/veterinary care for Angello.

Abigail, my daughter, from the outset thought I should keep the pup. In fact, she toyed with the idea of taking one herself but quickly realised that she could not - her apartment does not allow pets and she really is not up to the responsibility.

As the mother went into labour, the gentle giant called me. "Sapphire is having puppies," he declared. For the next 5 - 7 hours, I called every hour on the hour, just as I did the day Angello was trying to get the deed done.

After the first two were born, I declared to my friend, "the third one is mine."

Well fate would have it that the third was not only a male but the only one in the litter. To top it off, of the four pups the mother finally delivered, the third was the only one that totally resembled Angello!

In that moment I knew my boy was not for sale.

Few weeks passed and my career path begun to take a curve - with the possibility of me moving to another town increasing. Robert and I have been discussing the implications of this on our relationship - some days practically and on other days emotionally charged.

With things still up in the air - "living in the grey" I like to call it - we decided to drive out this afternoon to see the dogs.

Just as it was 8 years ago with his Dad, once I laid eyes on him I knew that he was coming home with me - wherever that will end up being.

Robert obviously felt the same way as he took so many pictures and was cooing over him (and the others) like he is the Dad!

On the drive home we talked about names. I had come up with Junior - got it? Angello Junior? Abigail did not think it so cool a name and Robert shared her opinion.

So I allowed myself to be overruled and Robert named him Marley. His argument for that is that the pup is part Jamaican and that name is almost synonymous with my country of origin. Please forgive him - he's fully Canadian but he's cute :)