What made you get your dog/s?

Just wondered what made you choose your specific dog/s or even breed/s?
I chose my breed due to my dad having one before (Tess) and though I thought over other breeds, I kept going back to English setters....
As for the pups, well I wanted a pale one and a boy so that was Jamie!!
Deacon, well I wanted a blue belton boy... there were three boys, two orange and one tri and the tri is my Deacon, he was such a fat pup and I loved him on sight!!
As for the duchess, well she came via a lovely lady on here, who needed homes for her babies!!
I would love to hear your stories

Well - many moons ago when we bought our first house together, the one thing we wanted straight away was a dog of our own. Sids first choice was a Rottie and mine was a GSD. So we got one of each!! (as you do!!!)

I lost my first GSD at 6mths to poisoning and my second Jasper had to be PTS because he had CDRM which got so bad he started to drag his back legs and his quality of life was badly impaired.

After losing him we didn't want another GSD, so we stuck with Rotts

I love their huge personalities, intelligence and handsome beauty. To me they are one of the most impressively beautiful dogs, especially the males. I even like the fact that they are not slavishly obedient and you they like to test you (although this liking is severely tested on cold, rainy days when he decides not to do a retrieve but ****** off down the field with it!!! ). I adore my big, lovable boy

Hi, We got Dexter after i had cancer, i had wanted a dog for sometime, but hubby finally gave in Dexter was a blessing, got me out of the house. Never particarly wanted a Lab , always wanted a Boxer or Dobermann, but were told need more dog experience.
Anyway love Labs will always have at least one in our pack, Roxi came along...she was slightly impulsive, but wouldn't be without her now .
Always wanted three dogs, and love the gundogs, we narrowed it down to a Vizsla, and waited two years for the little blighter to come into our lives

18 months after losing our dear Nippy and my hubby saying no more and me feeling I really cannot go through that again, our daughter arrived one day and said "I dreamed you had another dog" After she had gone hubby said "shall we?" and the next day we were at the rescue centre!
I have told many times how I turned Mo down because I didn't want a Greyhound. Boy how wrong can you be! Neither of us would be with out her now. And if ever there is a next time, it will be a Greyhound
(Oh and I didn't want a white one either )

I just wanted a doggy lol, I had grown up with dogs of all sorts, uncluding other sighthounds, a Deerhound, and a whippet and everyone loved them, and when I convinced my parents that we needed a dog we looked in the papers lol, and found a litter of dogs, Border collie cross Dobie, well my dad grew up with BCs and my mum had a Doby and they are her fav breed, but they were all gone (which tbh with I'm glad, that could be one nightmare dog) and then we saw a litter of Lurchers, that no one had rang up about, the people were fantastic who bred Honey, and there was blue brindles Honey the fawn and her brother who was also a fawn, and I prefer fawns, almost left with a blue, but I think that they are over rated, too many people want them, that its ruined for me, and I just love fawns so we got Honey, 6 months later we got Diesel as we wanted another dog, and Honey wanted a running partner lol, and Diesel had his name before we even saw him lol.

I ended up with my dog as she was my cousins (they didn't look after her well at all) and she was a wreck, so I took her off them. It's weird as before I had Jess, I would never have thought about a GSD as my type of dog, but now that I have one, I'm in love with the breed

What a lovely idea for a thread, nice to hear everyones stories.

My OH wanted a dog but i was a little wary. I was petrified of dogs as a child and worried i wouldnt be able to handle or control them when needed. So we got 2....
We had our reasons of course!

We chose the breed after meeting the kennel staff at one of their 'roadshows' outside a local pet shop. We actually met Paris there but she was very quiet and i have to admit we didnt really notice her

Anyway we ended up at the kennels and fell head over heels for Phil, our resident clown. Phil had a cyst on his head though and the kennels said if if came back after it was removed the vet had advised he would need to be put to sleep
But, Phil had his cyst removed and everything was fine. We were soooo relieved.

We were then advised that because we both work shifts it would be better to get 2, to keep each other company when we are not around. Thats when we met Paris again as she was recommended as the best to pair up with Phil. She takes a while to give her love, friendly but reserved, not fawning all over strangers like Phil!

I still say it was the best choice we ever made. They get on great now and Paris comes out of her shell a little more every day (sometimes a little too much!). I will never be without a greyhound now, they are beautiful, graceful gentle animals and i cant say enough good things about them.

We always talked about having a dog at some point and I grew up around my friends Border Collie Max and I adored him. He was a fantastic intelligent and crazy dog and I loved him to bits. My mum also had a Border Collie growing up in Scotland.
OH's friend is a builder who visits a lot of houses in his work and happened to mention a house he'd been doing some work in that was filthy and smelly, full of dirty kids in nappies and a new litter of border collie pups
We took one look at each other and asked if he'd find out what they were intending to do with the pups. Turned out they just wanted rid (not a nice family at all) and were giving them away.
That was the Sunday, OH's mate went back on the Tuesday and Tuesday night he brought us Cassie She was the most pathetic little thing, 6 weeks old, riddled with worms and fleas but gorgeous. 24 hours later she'd been to the vet, had a flea bath, treated for the worms and started her life with us. The rest is history

Awwwww its so nice to hear the stories behind the dogs All fabulous dogs

Hubby and I had just bought our first house.
Our next door neighbour had a beautiful little jack puppy, they bought it as a present for the new baby so she could grow up with a dog.
Her elder sister used to torment the dog, pulling it by the paw into the paddling pool and trying to drown it. One day the dog was sleeping in the sun in the garden when the girl ran up to her and kicked her in the stomach.
I cleared the small fence in one leap and I smacked that child right across the legs. She ran crying in to her mum who came out into her own garden where I was comforting the dog and she started to scream at me. That was when she found out I could sign, and I told her in her own language just what her child had done.
She called the child out, asked if it was true and when the child signed it was, she slapped her right across the face!

After that the father took the dog to work every day.
One evening I came home from work and he called me in, telling me Spot had had an accident, and he didn't know what to do.
When I saw her, her head was split open to the skull
He had apparently been shutting her in the van all day and this particular day he got in the van and sat in a wet seat. He hit her with the nearest thing to hand - a tile from a roof

I told him he knew that a child went to hospital and a dog goes to a vet, Yes he said, but I don't have to pay for the child.

So I offered to pay the vet's bill but only if I could keep the dog. They agreed.

Went to the vet, he knew the dog because we'd been there before, when I did some signing for the neighbours. I told him what happened and he stitched Spot up and told me it was touch and go if she would live or die. That night was the most important.
He also told me that if I was going to keep the dog, he wouldn't charge me, but we wouldn't tell the deaf people that. If they asked he would tell them the bill was in the hundreds. That way they wouldn't ask for Spot back again.

So we slept on the sofa that night, me and my Spotty - and she made it through the night. She was 18 months old and she lived to 18 years old.

She was my first dog and I couldn't have had a better one.
She only had eyes for me and hubby, she loved us totally. She ignored everyone else when we were out and about and when let off for a run she always kept an eye on us, and if we changed direction, she was back at our side in a flash.
I taught her so many things, and she did them all for love of me. I even taught her sign language, so I could just give a hand signal and she would obey.

We could handle her anywhere, we could do anything to her -she trusted us completely. She never laid a tooth upon us, but she regularly smothered us in kisses.

She didn't care where we went, what we did , as long as she was with us.

She taught me how loyal a dog could be, and how loving a dog could be.
She taught my husband who had only ever owned GSDs that jack russells were small dogs with big personalities -and that he preferred them to shepherds.

She taught me how a heart can break when you lose such a precious friend, and she taught me too how you never lose the love of such a precious friend.

She taught me I couldn't live without the love of another dog, and we both knew it had to be a dog, like she was, one who needed us.

That's how I came to love jack russells the most - though I love all dogs.

For love of Spot, we rescued Missy. When Missy goes we'll rescue another jack.
That's how love never dies.