Happy Monday friends! How was everyone’s weekend!? Currently, I’m sitting at Rise Biscuits & Donuts in Raleigh! Phillip had a work conference the beginning of this week and I decided to come along with him! (Oh, the joys of being able to work anywhere, am I right?!) I just finished a delicious fried chicken biscuit for breakfast earlier (vacation calories don’t count) and for a mid-afternoon snack I’m devouring one of Rise’s own King Donuts.  Oh my word y’all. This donut is literally a game changer! If you’re ever in Raleigh, you have to stop by! However, I believe I heard about a Rise in Charlotte!? Any of my CLT friends know of this?! Anyway! Regardless of where you are…it’s worth the trip!

Since it’s Monday, for today’s Married Monday post I’m going to be telling y’all some exciting news!! No, no…we’re not pregnant (sorry Mom!) We’re getting our Darcy girl TRAINED! (I know…probably not the “exciting news” you were expecting…) Yes! We’re getting her trained to become a certified therapy dog and we are SO excited!!

Darcy is our six month old Goldendoodle and she has been an absolute JOY in our lives since the day we brought her home! In the past few months, we have been considering putting in a fence around our house in order to let Darcy run around the yard without risking her safety.  She has a tendency to run off when we take her off leash and I can just see it now…her running into the road while a car was coming! She’s a smart gal, but goodness…when that leash comes off…she’s GONE! It doesn’t matter how many times we yell for her, she doesn’t listen when we call! We knew that a fence wasn’t going to “fix” that problem, so we decided that we’d get her trained instead! We figured since we’re going to have Darcy in our life for the next 12-15 years…we may as well get her trained so she’s trained for life!  (Plus, a fence was just SO DANG EXPENSIVE!!)

After doing some research, asking some of my previous Client’s who have had their dogs trained, and getting all of my questions answered, we decided to go with a board-and-train program with Off-Leash K-9 Training in Charlotte.  Darcy will leave us this upcoming Sunday to go off to training for a full TWO WEEKS! I have NO IDEA how I’m going to handle not seeing Darcy-girl for two weeks straight! It’s going to be a HUGE adjustment in our life! It’s hard enough to even be away from her for 2 days, let alone 2 WEEKS!

This two week program will focus on getting Darcy trained to follow obedience commands off leash with distractions! She will learn her manners, socialization skills with both dogs and people, and all obedience commands off leash.  She will be ready to take a therapy dog certification test, and once completed, she’ll be a certified training dog! The training is a bit expensive, but in the big scheme of things…the training is A (heck of!) LOT cheaper than a fence!!

We fell in LOVE with the Goldendoodle breed when Phillip’s Grandma was in the hospital earlier last year.  A Goldendoodle therapy dog was inside the waiting room with us while we were waiting on his Grandma to get out of surgery.  We just loved petting, snuggling up, and loving on that pup that I decided right then and there one day we would have one for the same reason! To provide comfort and ease to people waiting in a waiting room or patients in a hospital or nursing home.  I think dogs can not only be your best friend and loyal companion throughout the day, but also provide such a service to those in need! Aren’t dogs just the BEST?!

I’m so excited to get the board-and-train program started with our Darcy-Loo, but I’m even more excited for her to be done with it and get her back! Don’t worry friends, I will definitely keep y’all up to date on her progress and let you know how she does with training! I highly recommend this training regardless! So far, our trainer Lindsey has been SO helpful with answering all of my questions and I know from viewing their YouTube videos that Darcy will be a well-trained, well-behaved good girl soon! I can’t wait!

If you’d like more information about therapy dogs and therapy dog certification, click here. 

If you’d like more information on Off Leash K-9 Training Charlotte, click here.

Follow the Off Leash K-9 Training Charlotte on Facebook here! 

View Off Leash K-9 Training YouTube Channel here! 

Here’s some of our favorites from our Christmas Card Shoot last year! Darcy-Loo has grown SO much since then AND has had her first “big girl” haircut since then as well!