Saoirse (yeah, try pronuncing that)

Today is a very big day because today our little family grew to three :) We have adopted a little girl called Saoirse from Dogs Trust Kenilworth. She is a three to four year old German Shepherd who was born in Ireland. We know very little of her early life as she was picked up as a stray and her family couldn't be found. She was taken to the UK to have a better chance of finding a new homebut she must have had a home at some point though as she is very well behaved and was both micro-chipped (twice!) and spayed (again - twice! They opened her up to spay her and realised it had already been done in Ireland.). As she had stitches in and wasn't fully vaccinated she wasn't allowed out of the kennel though, so she was so bouncy when we went to see her! The picture is from Sunday the 25th when we visited her for the second time. As she had to "do her business" in the kennel we came out of there smelling ever so faintly of dog pee lol. She knows sit and is very enthusiastic about giving her paw (she gives you both paws and tries to lift herself up a little bit to reach the treat), but she is very gentle when you feed her something.



Saoirse is an Irish Gaelic name meaning Freedom or Liberty. I think Rob read somewhere that it's a very patriotic name first in use from the 1920's. No one really knew how to pronunce it at the rehoming centre so when we got back we Googled it. Try it first and then have a look at the video - see how close you get! ;)

At the centre one of the carers said Sorcha, the rest had stopped trying and simply called her "the shepherd with the weird name". I watched this video and have been quietly repeting her name to myself over and over again to learn it properly. When we came to visit on the Sunday one of the carers asked if we would change her name and I said "No! We love that it's so special!". Now I have two Irish descendants in the house ;) It's nice not being the only foreigner anymore! Haha!

We have been looking for a dog for quite some time; back and forth really - we have been looking and then waited for a bit, started looking again then waited... When we had Bronson we really felt good about having a dog around the house but he was a bit too young for us. We're keeping fingers crossed this will work out. As with any rescue there are no guarantees it will work out - she might not be the right dog for us, we might not be the right family for her - but we're really excited about the opportunity to take her in.

On the Sunday we went to visit Saoirse we also went to the Pre adoption Talk that Dogs Trust gives to owners to be. Twice per week their behaviourist meets up with the people who have booked dogs during the week and gives a short lecture on dog behaviour and training. What to do and what not to do and so on (some of the stuff I realised we have been doing to Amadeus all his life - for example she said NEVER to touch the dog when it's eating because they will sooner or later feel like you can't be trusted around food and will snap at you). She was very funny though. She was saying about insurance that it is vital to get a good one or you might end up "paying £7000 the week before Christmas to remove Christmas from your dogs stomach". She gets to take home the extra special cases from Dogs Trust who cannot be rehomed with "regular people" and one of these dogs had eaten pretty much EVERYTHING she owned. Including a sofa, her entire wardrobe (structure and clothes), a wall, Saving Private Ryan on VHS and, a mentioned above, Christmas. She finished with saying Dogs Trust were dependent on people like us adopting dogs and if our new dog wanted a friend in a couple of months we were welcome back ;)

In preparation for her to come home we have had our fence sorted so there is no longer a big hole in it (there was a hole in it where a sheet of metal had fallen off a roof on a very windy day and hit it). Rob also went out and bought a new super hoover as Shepherds are known to molt a LOT.

I can't wait to take her down to Meadowside and have a walk around the park, maybe throw some balls (if she is good off the lead...!) and do some obedience training. She needs her last vaccination though before she's allowed to go out. I have been looking at taking classes and maybe (one day) being able to try competing on a low level so a German Shepherd should be perfect for that as long as we learn to work together. Rob's also very happy to know that when he goes to work away I have someone to cuddle with.

This is starting to get very, very long.... I'm sure you will be hearing a lot about Saoirse from me in the future as well - I'm not going to force all of it on you now, lol.

Go hug a pooch!
Love you all <3
Saga xx