How did we decide to get Jacoby?
The decision started while we were raising our first Golden Retriever, Boomer.
The Boomer decision was helped by the fact that during a family vacation in Montana there were two Golden Retrievers at our bed and breakfast that visited the kids every day. So we decided to surprise them by getting a Golden from Diane McDonagh at Tory Glen Goldens in Carver, MA. We called him Hank Boomer Todd.
As Boomer aged, Katy decided she'd like another Golden Retriever to keep Boomer (and her) company as Steve traveled and the kids moved on to college. Unfortunately Boomer got cancer and died so quickly that we never got that companion dog for him.
The pain of losing Boomer made Steve hesitant to get another dog; it was so painful that he didn't want to go through it again.
But Katy had loved Boomer so much and brought him everywhere with her. So about six months after Boomer's death we called Diane McDonough again and found out that another litter would be coming in the Fall of 2011, and we put our names in.
She told us that we were fourth on the list for a male puppy.
And on October 25, 2011, Jacoby's Mom gave birth to four male puppies. This meant in early December we would go pick up whatever male puppy hadn't been chosen by the three other families.
So in December 2011 we drove down to Carver to pick up whatever dog was left.
Except when we got there, we found that there were two puppies to choose from.
