So we did a thing... again!
Johnny and I have been talking for months about getting a friend for Bozley. He's had pretty bad anxiety that developed seemingly out of nowhere in December. He's also desperately wanted the chihuahuas and the cats to play with him...but once he got bigger than them, they are not fans at all. We wanted to find him someone who will be more his own size that he can really play with. And he's been extremely interested in the female golden retriever on the other side of the fence. So we've just been thinking about it for awhile.
Wednesday afternoon Johnny was looking on adoptapet.com just to see what kind of pets are out there. Then I just happened to be browsing my Facebook feed and saw a post in a local Golden Retriever group about a 7 month old female with food allergies...just like Bozley! It just seemed like it was meant to be. So I sent the woman a message asking for more information. She said that they'd had a lot of people asking about her but no actual offers. And then she asked about my maiden name. Turns out that she married someone that I'd gone to school with! Such a small world!
So Johnny and I talked about it and we made the spur of the moment decision that night to meet them about half an hour away and pick up Bozley's new friend...less than two weeks shy of a year from the day we brought Bozley home! We took Bozley with us to meet her. Ashlyn went with us too...so that way she could sit in the backseat with them to referee if needed.
She was already named Nova Lee and we decided not to change it. Johnny's middle name is Lee (and his mom's name and his kids' second middle names) so we thought it was meant to be. :) She was born on 12/31/20...so she's about 6 1/2 months old. She is just 1 day shy of 7 months younger than Bozley. She's nearly the same size as Bozley already! Her face is quite a bit different than Boz...he has a bit more blocky head while her face is more pointy with a much less pronounced dip from her forehead to her nose. She's not as red as Bozley...he's more of a dark golden and she's just golden. The fur on Nova's back is also really wavy. It'll be interesting to see how she looks when her coat is all grown in. She's in that awkward teen stage right now. ;)
Bozley was SO excited to meet her. He was excited in the Dillons parking lot when they met, continued to be excited on the way home, and they played for hours after we got home. Boz has a thing with ears (human, dog, cat...he loves all ears) so he kept licking her ears all night. They were SO excited running around the backyard together. They finally wore themselves out but Boz continued wanting to be within inches of Nova. She slept in the kennel and he laid by the kennel off and on that first night. She whined every once in awhile but she did fall asleep. She woke up barking at 5am. I took her outside and she went to the bathroom then went back in the kennel for a few more hours. I decided to just go ahead and sleep on the couch because it seemed to make her sleep better and Johnny had to be up for work. Plus I was super tired. :P But on the second night she slept through the night in the kennel with no problem. :)
Nova Lee is the sweetest girl. She follows me everywhere and she loves to cuddle. She's made herself right at home like she's been here all along. She'll curl up on the couch next to me and fall asleep with her head in my lap then she sprawls out belly up. She's pretty laid back and doesn't bark a whole lot. She's definitely not a picky eater like Bozley, so that's nice! She came to us already housetrained and knows several commands: sit, kennel, and comes when called.
I think Bozley is getting used to her and figuring out that she didn't just come over to play. I think he's starting to get annoyed with her too...like a little sister who is playing with his toys. ;) But he's been playing with the toys she brought home, too. So they don't play with toys much together (although they did play tug-of-war once) but they still love running around and chasing each other. Which is nice, because it wears them out! ;) The only time Boz got really upset is when he was burying his bone in the blanket and she took it...he did NOT like that! But other than that they've been getting along well. Neko and the cats on the other hand...they're NOT a fan. Hopefully they'll all warm up to each other after awhile. Neko growls and snaps at her and the cats have been in hiding. The entire first night and second day Milo just stayed under the bed. The second night Milo and Angel both jumped on the bed at bedtime since Nova Lee was in the kennel in the living room. And Leo even came out in the living room while Nova Lee was asleep.
We did have to get a bigger kennel for her. Bozley hasn't used the kennel (which we'd bought to keep the chihuahua brothers in) since he was about 3 months old. So we went from the medium-size kennel to the large-size kennel and she fits much better. ;) We also got her a new collar for her tags, a prong collar and leash like we got for Bozley, and I got some more bones so they're less likely to fight over them. :P
Here's a photo of Bozley and Nova Lee the night we brought her home after they finally stopped running and playing in the yard.