We saw the litter twice. Once to play with the litter and pick our puppy, then to see how she was developing. Additionally, the breeder sent us emails and pictures over those few weeks. We had ideas about what we wanted but interacting with them and the breeder gave is a positive feeling about the whole process. We could always recognise Holly because she had a darker patch of fur on her neck, and was always the one with her back to the camera in the breeder's pictures.
He's the one on the right, the one who climbed up on top of the pile of all his brothers and sisters.
With Burke, I found a local breeder and we went and visited the litter a couple of times. He was the last boy left, and we had an older female who didn't always get along well with other females, so he was it if we liked him, though we almost chose his sister. He was the biggest boy in the litter and I think the most active/dominant. With Bessie, I knew for a while I wanted to get another puppy but I did want to get a rescue this time. Very rarely do 8 week old pups show up at shelters here. These were posted on the humane society's FB page, my 18yo daughter sent me the link, and I took a look at the pups and the mom and decided we should "go look." Spoke with the foster mom, who'd done a great job socializing them, and picked her after 3 of the 9 were already chosen. Only one girl was chosen of five already, and we wanted a girl bc of Burke. So we got to pick from four, I think. I asked the mom for one of the calmer ones, and she said Bessie was the calmest girl. They all looked mostly identical, but most had a white blaze on their chests, while she only has one white toe and a little white fur on the underside of her paws.
