Bailey's Story

Earlier this Summer, Wanda and I made a tough decision to get rid of Bailey.  This was not an easy decision. Here's the story of how it progressed, how we came to the decision, and how we are coping.

First off, we got Bailey as a 7 week old puppy from Wanda's brother, Rick, who has since passed away.  This just added to how much Bailey meant to us. It was great seeing her grow up to 80 pounds from when I could just hold her in my hand.

It was fun having Bailey around and having someone to greet us at the door, though we would have preferred to have bought fewer comforters for our bed! At the same time, a dog requires time and energy.  A dog like Bailey, a Lab, needs attention and needs to be able to use some of her energy.   Our house just didn't provide for that as we are not keen on going on a lot of walks.  We went into this with great intentions, but never really lived up to those intentions very well.  We do not have a yard that we can let Bailey out in and only in the last year have we had a gated area between our garage and house (not very big and all cement).  Thus, the only exercise she had was in the house and if we took her for a walk.  She deserved better.

After we had Emma, we watched Bailey to see how she would respond and treat her.  Bailey had no issues with going up to Emma and giving her attention, but she did not like when Emma tried to give her attention.  There was never a point where we were scared that Bailey would hurt her in any way other than knocking her over (or stepping on her) but we did sense some resistance on Bailey's end to let Emma play with her.

On top of this, we were looking for some ways to save money and as you can imagine, dogs aren't exactly cheap.  When you add in the shots, the food, the new comforters, shelters, etc. it adds up fairly quickly.

All that being said, we started looking for a new home for Bailey.  As I mentioned, there was quite a bit of sentiment behind Bailey and thus it would be hard to get rid of her to just anyone, especially hard for Wanda.  Ultimately, we ended up asking Wanda's sister-in-law, Rick's wife, if she was interested and she said yes.  She happens to have a lot of acreage that Bailey can run and play on.  This environment was going to be much better and more enjoyable for a Lab.

Wanda had a rough time with getting rid of her, but we know who she was with and we got lots of Facebook updates and pictures to help with the transition.  It has been a nice break from having to constantly let the dog outside/inside, having to come home sooner just to let her out, and having to drop her off at a kennel while we went out of town.  We do still miss having her around, but we know she is in good hands.  Maybe someday we will consider getting another dog, but not for a while...