When we lost our last cocker, Sophie, I was inconsolable. The morning after she died I was breaking my heart in bed and OH was going to work. He told me I had to get up and start looking for another puppy. I said no way, I could never love another dog the way I had loved Sophie. OH, by the way, never wanted a dog and it took me 7 years to persuade him to have Sophie and now it was him who was saying we had to have another one as soon as possible. I did drag myself out of bed and in those days we didn't have a computer so I drove to the nearest town and found an internet place. What I must have looked like I cannot think as I was looking at cocker spaniels on the internet with tears pouring down my face surrounded by other people looking at other things on computers.
Once I started looking for a puppy I carried on. I kept ringing breeders who had either no puppies or who had puppies who were all sold, but they all gave me someone else's number to ring. In all I must have rung about 70 people. Then, 9 days after we lost Sophie, I found the most wonderful breeder who's puppies were being born as we spoke. She interrogated the life out of me but eventually said I could have a puppy, subject to her meeting us when the puppies were 5 weeks old. And so came Ellie.
For us it was the right thing to do to look for another puppy straight away. Obviously we had to wait 8 weeks until we could bring Ellie home, but the thought of bringing her home was the only thing that kept us going. Now I always tell people who have lost a dog that the only way to get over them is to get another one to love. As a lovely lady near me said when I told her I could never get another dog as I couldn't love one as much as I did Sophie 'you will love another one, you will just love it differently'. And that is so true. I will admit that the day we brought Ellie home I sat with her on my knee and felt the most intense guilt that I had replaced Sophie. By day 2 Ellie was locked in my heart, just as Sophie had been and is.
Everyone is different. A girl at work waited 2 years before she got another dog, but when she did she regretted waiting those 2 years as she realised how much she had missed the love of a dog and really regretted wasting that time. I once met a couple out walking with their jack russell. They told me that he was rescue dog and that when they had had to have their last dog put to sleep they drove home and couldn't face going into the house without a dog being there. They didn't go in the house, they drove straight to a rescue centre and brought their jack russell home. It wouldn't work for everyone, but it worked for them.
It is 8 years since we lost Sophie, I still love her so intensely and deeply it is beyond words, and I love Ellie so intensely and deeply it is beyond words. Just somehow, and I don't know how, I love them differently.
My advice would be to get another puppy. It won't be Rosie, and you will never stop loving Rosie, but you will love your new baby. Trust me.
One thing I would say is that Sophie was a blue roan and I wanted an identical blue roan, just like Sophie. Ellie's litter had blue roans and orange roans. When I told her breeder that I wanted a blue roan just like Sophie, she tried to persuade me to have an orange roan because she felt I might compare the new puppy with Sophie. I was adamant that it was to be a blue roan. We were the first to choose a puppy from the litter and the very clever breeder wouldn't give us directions to her house, which was 3 hours away, but made us ring her when we got to the village where she lived. She then met us with one of her beautiful orange roan cockers and that was that. The puppy was to be orange roan from that moment and it was entirely the right thing for me. Do you think it might be better to maybe have another colour other than golden this time. It is entirely up to you of course, but it was definitely the right thing for me.
Thinking of you and hoping for you that it will not be long before you have a new puppy to love.
