I’m an almost 10 week old Kooikerhondje and I’m the newest member of the Ammann Family. A Kooikerhondje is a small, flashy, orange-brown and white spaniel-like sporting dog. Originally bred in The Netherlands as a duck decoy dog, its heavily white plumed tail waves jauntily to entice and lure ducks to follow it into Duck cages. My temperament is used to be described as cheerful, good natured, friendly, quiet, well-behaved, and alert.

It’s nearly three years ago when we informed our girls that we’ll move to the United States. After Leonie’s having surpassed the first shock she asked me: “what will you do in Charlotte?” I told her that I will take care of family, house and garden. Her answer: “So, it’s finally time that we can get a dog!” And yet, why not!

After we moved to Charlotte we started googling around to find out what breed would match best with our family. Time passed by and we delayed acting up on it. But there was always a family member that reminded us about having a dog. Finally I found an article about the Kooikerhondje and I fall in love whit this breed, this dog fits perfectly to our family manners and he should even be able to accompany me on my runs. The only problem: it’s a really rare breed especially here in the US. We came to the decision that when we ever will have a dog than it has to be a Kooiker, perhaps not until we’re back in Switzerland. But as I already said there was always a family member which kept up on the idea…

We found a breeder in Illinois that was expecting puppies for the end of the year. Eventually everything went pretty quick and Leonie and me flew up to Indianapolis on the 3rd of January. After a two hours drive through the wintery landscape at 0 Fahrenheit and a night in Danville (can’t write something about this town only saw the Burger King and the hotel room) we picked up our puppy the next morning. One look and we gave him the name Greg and we knew that we felt the right decision.

Now he’s enriching our life since ten days… Having a puppy is a lot of fun and there is nothing better than a warm welcome kiss from an excited and wagging furry friend, I wish I could just leave it at that but unfortunately there are a lot more things: it’s almost like having another baby, getting up in the middle of the night, bring the dog outside and wait until he finished his business, either if it’s raining or as cold as ice, bring him inside again and find out that it was already to late. Doing fun little training skills every day, only that he can ignore all of them the next time. Digging in flower pots, pulling out everything he can reach, treating slippers like a bone, chewing every plant he can find,… Sometimes I’m asking myself “what have I done?” But watching Greg playing in the backyard, retrieving a ball, chasing a loose leaf, looking puzzled at a Cardinal it’s worth all the troubles. And when he fell asleep on your chest, you know again why you did this! And we already learned that it’s up to us to close the doors and storage our things on the right place.

To be continued!