Alfie

Photo By Master Dolittle

The Loonatic Lab

Alfie has been with us now for over 4 years.  Back in the day when it was just me and Mr Dolittle, we took it upon ourselves to buy a dog.  With no children on the horizon for some time (we thought), we decided that we would scour the newspapers and see what four legged friend awaited us.  So whilst I was at home one day, I made the all important call to Mr Dolittle explaining rather excitedly that I had found our furbaby.  Well after a two and a half hour drive in the middle of nowhere, we finally found our Alfie.  It was just him and one other puppy left.  One puppy came bounding up to us, wagging his little tail and bouncing up and down in the back of the farmers truck, whilst the other puppy sat cautiously at the back, as if butter wouldn’t melt.  “That’s him!” I exclaimed to Mr Dolittle.  I chose the butter wouldn’t melt puppy, not because he was quiet and calm, but because he gave me the same look that my parents old dog Max used to give,  “Oh please look after me, I’m soooo good and look I’m sooooo sad like all labrador’s.”  So off we trot , £350 lighter in our pocket, and another two and a half hour journey home. 

Alfie (though we hadn’t named him by then) lay fast asleep in my lap the whole time.  He was that small!  I was giddy with excitement and we kept getting honked and flashed by other drivers as they didn’t understand that we needed the interior car light on for our new furbaby, it felt like the start of an exciting adventure for all of us.  Further into the journey, Mr Dolittle and I began to discuss names.  Tank, which was what we originally wanted to call our new dog, just didn’t seem right.  So Mr Dolittle suggested Alfie.  Now there is a story that goes along with this name.  I always said I wanted my first born son to be called Alfie, Mr Dolittle however had other ideas.  He basically suggested, decided and agreed to call our new furbaby Alfie in order for me not to be able to call our first born son this (you’ll see the signficance of this later).

So we get Alfie home and all is well, despite a few trips to the vet because of a dodgy tum, toilet training that ended up in him one day eating his own poo (this is common in labs I’m told!), furniture mangling and the bean bag incident as it’s known now whereby beanbag balls were scattered in every area and crevice of our home, but we still loved our boy anyway.  Then the next phase happened……

Mr Dolittle and I found we were having another addition to the family! One we hadn’t exactly planned shall we say and one that didn’t have four legs!  We found out a week or two after bringing Alfie home that we were having a baby the following May.

However four years on and now parents to Master Dolittle (no he wasn’t called Alfie surprise, surprise), Alfie, Prince, Bobby, Beaker, Bruce and Nemo, we wouldn’t have it any other way!  No Alfie isn’t the quiet cautious puppy he made out that day (like I thought otherwise having prevously lived with another yellow lab) instead he is a mental, spinning round, chasing his own tail, can jump off all fours at the same time and reaches my shoulders, yellow lab with a huge heart.

Labradors are the best doggies in the world, especially my Alf.  He bounces up and down when I come home from a long day at work, he barks if he thinks his family is in danger, he grooms the rabbits with his big pink ham tongue, he lets a 4 year old boy pull at his tail and allows him to ride him like a horse and he always knows when I’ve got things on my mind; he comes over and just lays his head in my lap and looks at me and wags his tail.

All in all, I’m a very lucky Mummy and dog lover!