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Meet 'Vera Lyn'...

...The newest family member at The Unique Nest

Life just got a little sweeter, and fluffier --- (is that a word?) at our home. On Saturday, October 8th we welcomed the addition of an F1b standard Goldendoodle named 'Vera Lyn'. Vera came into our home and our hearts rather abruptly and brought a little puppy magic to our household.

Vera came to us by a series of very fortunate events. I recently learned that the school district I work for (in the role of Assistant Principal) would support the idea of a therapy/social service dog at our high school. They just needed someone willing to take on the responsibility of adopting a dog and training it to work in a school setting. It's not as though I needed to add another thing to my already overloaded plate of life, but I gladly took on this opportunity and within just two weeks I had located, purchased and welcomed Vera into our home.


Vera is an absolute love! We worked closely with breeder Kim Ortiz from Orchard Pups near Rochester, NY to determine which puppy would make the most sense (disposition-wise) to do therapy work. We decided that Vera would make a great fit and now it's up to us to train her and put in the time and effort to work toward that goal. 

It's important to note that we needed a dog that was hypoallergenic for both my son and I. This limited what breeds we could adopt but we wanted a big dog (Vera will be upwards of 60+ pounds in adulthood) so the Goldendoodle breed seemed to be a good fit for our family.


So far Vera has made herself right at home. She's made friends with our chicken flock and absolutely LOVES being outdoors. This was exciting because we love to hike, camp and be outside as a family. 

She is also getting along as good as can be expected with our 14 year-old Yorkshire Terrier 'Milton'. She's just driving him a little nuts with all her puppy behavior right now :)





Vera has a lot of work ahead of her and I have a lot of learning to do as her trainer but I'm excited and optimistic about it. She must be a minimum of one year of age before taking the Therapy Dogs International (TDI) certification test so until then we will be in lots of classes and gradually introducing her into the school community.

Look forward to future posts and updates on Miss Vera and how she's doing. Until then --- I hope this little puppy face brings you as much joy as it brings to me!!! 




Happy "tails" to you --- until we meet again!


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