The puppy search

Two years ago I was looking for a Papillon puppy. I started my search with good ol' Google and scrutinized the websites of every breeder I found. One of the sites that I took a liking to was Myfriend Papillons, owned by Karen and Steve Baird in Oregon. I bookmarked it and kept them in mind. The next step was asking online in general Papillon groups and in agility groups for recommendations. I specifically wanted an energetic, high-drive puppy to compete in agility with me. Myfriend Papillons came up again as a recommendation.

Despite my plans, I ended up bringing home an eight month old male Papillon who had been raised by an elderly couple who could not take care of him anymore. Cinnamon Snapdragon and I had many adventures until he was tragically lost in July of 2012.

I grieved for him but I knew instantly that I wanted to bring home another Papillon, and this time it would be an itty bitty puppy. I wanted to put in the critical puppy work of socializing, house-training, crate-training, and teaching bite inhibition and basic manners.

I contacted Karen Baird and as luck would have it, she had a litter of four tiny, 2 week old puppies. (Chimera is the one on the far right.) We kept in touch as the puppies grew, and one of the pups stood out. Karen wasn't planning on keeping him for herself or selling him to a show home because he was growing very quickly and looked like he would end up being too tall for the conformation ring. And he seemed to have exactly the personality I was looking for: confident, curious, and easily recovering from stress. Karen reported that he was always the first puppy from the litter to try new things and had the most energy. As a bonus he enjoyed playing in water, and I like water dogs!

It seemed like a match made in heaven. On October 9th, when the litter was 10.5 weeks old, my friend Sherry, her adult Papillon Jacques, and I drove up to Oregon to evaluate the available puppy.