I GOT A PUPPY! 🐶 bringing home my cavapoo..

Oh, look, the sun's coming out. Well, this is a little bit excited, isn't it? I feel like I've been a little bit absent online lately. I tried not to be, I tried my best to cover up my silence, but I have been a little bit preoccupied with the pitter patter of tiny paws. You wanna come and show everybody? What are you doing, you crazy pup? I've got someone I'd like you to meet. Please don't bite my hair for this part, babes. She's fascinated because I feel like a new mum and I've had my hair in a bun every single day since she came home. We don't bite here. She's going crazy. She's having a mad moment. So everyone, this is Sunny. She is a nine-week-old Cavapoo. She'll be almost 10 weeks by the time you see this video, but we've had her since she was eight weeks. So, oh, been in our family a while now, haven't you? Say hello, everybody. Right, you go and play then. Oh, that was a tiny little bark. That was a tiny little bark. So she is a Cavapoo, which is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and she is mixed with a toy poodle. So she is gonna be quite little when she's fully grown. She's already tiny, although I feel like she's massive. She's grown a lot since we bought her home. Her name is Sunny. I love her name. I think it suits her so well. She's brought so much happiness. She's just a little bundle of joy in my life. I absolutely love her. So I wanna tell you a little bit about her because I am obsessed. Like, she is my absolute baby. But first of all, I really want to stress that she is not a lockdown puppy. I'm really aware that so many people are getting puppies lately and everyone feels like their lifestyle suddenly suits having a dog, when in reality, it's not for everybody. However, I have been looking for a dog for almost a year now, like actively looking. It just so happened that the time we came across the perfect pup was during lockdown and I know it's a very serious commitment and I will get into that later on in the video. Babes, can you stop digging while I'm chatting, please? So first of all, a little bit about Sunny. While she chews my slippers. Having a puppy is not easy. What you doing? She's like the puppy version of me. You're a good girl, aren't you? She has been so good so far. You might see her playing behind me. Where are you? She's gonna have a little lie down. Like I was saying, accidents are rare with her. I did so much research before getting her. I have watched pretty much every dog training video on the internet. So we've been taking her out in the garden really regularly. I think as we're filming this today, we've had her for just over a week and she's had two accidents in the house. So, and they were our fault to be honest. So she's super good. She loves cuddles. That is her favourite thing. She can sit and cuddle with you for hours. She goes all floppy and sleepy and dozy. It's so cute. She loves people. We've had a couple of family members around in the garden on different occasions and she just loves meeting somebody new. Don't you? You're a people person. Well, a people dog. At the minute, she is terrified of her food bowl. I don't know why, but we're having to feed her from the floor. We are scooping her food out of her bowl and giving it to her. She just doesn't like the bowl. So that's something we're working on. Isn't it little one? And I know people say puppies sleep a lot, but I truly didn't realise how much they sleep. She will play for half an hour and then she'll have a two hour nap. And honestly, same. I actually got some footage of the first few days when she came home. So I'll insert that now and you can see what we've been up to. Cause it's been busy. Like I said, I feel like a new mum. I need to get going because I'm running late. It is 7.30 in the morning. And today is the day that I'm going to pick up my puppy. I'm so excited. I'm a little bit nervous as well because I've never had a dog before, but I've been waiting for this day for literally months, if not years. Do you want to take her straight out to the garden? Yeah, I think we need to go straight out with her. She's tired, isn't she? Yeah. This is your kingdom. Good girl. What's that? I'm going to tell you what we're doing. Hello YouTube. She's coming. So we got home about 20 minutes ago and I am sat here waiting for her to do her poo. It's my new life now. We put a puppy pad down just so she knows. Do you know what I mean? I don't know, we thought that might be a good idea. She can go on the grass or she can go on there. Excuse my socks and sliders, by the way. She's so small. This is my hand. You can't even appreciate how small she is, but her nose is not even the size of my thumbnail. As you're watching this right now, have a look at your hand and have a look at your thumbnail. Her nose isn't even as big as that. She's exploring. Found anything? Did you find anything good? Are you going in your bed? Good girl. Are you going in your bed? What's in your bed? This is the toy that came with her breeder, so it smells of her litter. Can you smell your brothers and sisters? She has actually been in her crate already and she's had some food. This is a little heartbeat sheep, so it's got a heartbeat, so it feels like one of her litter mates. She really liked that on the car ride home, actually. She slept underneath it quite a lot. So I'm just gonna leave that in there for now. We've been back for about an hour and, oh, she just opened her eyes. Sorry, I'll let you sleep. So Sunny's been with us for a few days now. It's day four of having her, I think, and we're about to give her her first bath. I don't think you're gonna like it. You're gonna smell like baby powder. Who's that? So these are the ingredients of how to give a puppy a bath, we think. We don't know. We've never done this before. So we're gonna do it in the sink here because I feel like it would be less slippery. It's a smaller space for her and it would be easier to wash her. So I actually bought this on Amazon. It goes onto your tap and then it's a little shower head, so I thought I'd make it really easy. This is the shampoo that I went for. It is Baby Fresh. It smells really nice. It smells like baby powder. So I've got that as a shampoo and then I also got it as a cologne. Who even knew they did dog perfume? I don't think I'm gonna put this on her today, but I just wanted to show you that. I've got both of these. This is for like a little refresh, I think, between washes. And then these have come in really handy already, actually. These are some eye pads. So Cavapoo's, I think, I don't know if it's every breed, actually, but I know Cavapoo's are quite bad for it. They get quite watery eyes when they're little and then they get like eye bogeys, basically. So we've been wiping her eyes with these every day and I've also got some ear finger pads. So we're gonna clean the inside her ears as well. And then I've got this brush that I picked up on Amazon. All of this was from Amazon, by the way. And we've got her little doggy towel. So we're gonna give her a bath, kind of just wing it and see what happens. A bit of warm water in there to start with. By the way, just wanted to point out, this isn't our kitchen sink. This is in our like utility room. Good girl. Okay, she's in the bath. She's been really good, actually. She's a little bit apprehensive, a little bit scared, but she hasn't tried to jump out. She hasn't whined or cried or anything like that. Smells lovely, doesn't it? Yeah, like a little chicken. Good girl, son. She looks like a little rat. You're a bit cold. It's okay, we'll dry you. She's going mad now. Come on, dry yourself. She was so scared. And then as soon as we put her down on the towel, she went mad. Look, she's wagging her tail. Good girl. So your bath time's not bad, is it? So we've just put her collar on her and I don't think she's a fan. She was fine at first until she heard the name tag jingle. And now she's very confused. It's been a big day for you, hasn't it? She's absolutely fine after her bath though. She's happy as Larry, her tail's wagging. I've come to sit on my feet again. You've forgiven me for giving you a bath. So we're about to do our first bit of training. Let's start with sit. Sunny, sit. Sit, good girl. When she puts her bum down, I'm gonna give her a little bit because it's like progression, isn't it? Sit. Good girl. It's tiny bits of chicken, by the way, that I'm feeding her. Just plain chicken. Sunny, sit. Good girl. That was so good for your first ever try. So guess what, YouTube? I just did my first ever training session. Good girl. You've got every last bit. Where's Ellie? There she is. Sunny, where's your cat? There it is. Good, you got it. How adorable. She is just fitting into our family so, so well. But she is my dog. I bought her. She's my responsibility and I'm fully aware of everything that entails. I've got a lot to say in this video and I feel like I'm probably still gonna forget something. So I have actually made notes because I feel like this is an important topic to talk about and I didn't wanna just talk about it really blasé. Is that the word? I've got my notes and I wanted to explain everything that's happened over the past, well, year, really, of actively looking for a dog because I know it is quite controversial to buy a puppy rather than to rescue a dog and I really want to stress that this isn't something I've just done on a whim and I promise you, I have overthought this to within an inch of his life. So I'm gonna go into a little bit of the backstory and things about us as a family that, I don't know, you might not care, you just wanna see the cute puppy, right? But I feel like it's important to say this. So until I was around 15, I had a complete phobia of dogs. Any kind of dog, whether it's a puppy, whether it's big, small, loud, quiet, I was phobic. I had a lot of hypnotherapy for it. I saw, I think, three different therapists to try and get over my fear and nothing was working. We actually decided when I was 16 that we were gonna get a puppy because we thought that was gonna be the only way for me to get over this phobia. So we went to go and view some puppies and back in the day, they were actually Cavapuchins. So they were Cavalier crossed with Poodle and Bichon Frise. We went to view them, the woman was really understanding, but long story short, my GCSEs were coming up so we decided that wasn't the right time as I wanted to focus on my exams instead. So that is where this journey began all those years ago. I'm now 21, so that was five years ago that we first thought about getting a puppy as a family. Between then and now, I started to get used to dogs a bit more. I was around dogs more. I kind of forced myself to be around them because this phobia took over my life. I can't even explain it. Even something as simple as hearing keys jingle, I would panic that it was a dog collar in the middle of a shop. It didn't matter where it was. It literally consumed my life. That was a very big tangent, right? That's a bit about me. Obviously, if you're getting a dog, it goes without saying that rescuing would be the better option. Everyone's got different opinions on this. Nobody's ever gonna fully agree, but I just want to explain myself because I think that's the right thing to do really. So we really wanted to rescue a dog and it is something that we looked into between the time of looking at the first puppy five years ago to getting Sonny now. Everyone else in my extended family has always rescued dogs. In fact, no one has ever bought a puppy in my entire family. And I know it sounds really hypocritical of me to sit here and say you should rescue a dog when I've bought a puppy, but I really feel like you just have to judge what's best for your specific family. For my family, the main reason we bought a puppy wasn't because of my phobia. It's actually because my dad has quite complex allergies to dogs. He's not allergic to dog fur. He's allergic to the hair follicle. So first of all, that writes off pretty much most breeds. We needed a very specific breed. We know he's fine with Cavalier King Charles Spaniels because in the past, that's just one breed of dog that doesn't affect his allergies. And also Poodles are very hypoallergenic because of their curly fur. So for us, the combination of the Cavalier and the Poodle was the perfect breed. It's a bonus that she's very cute, but that was the main reason why we chose a Cavapoo. We were originally gonna go for a Cockapoo, but my dad doesn't react well with Cocker Spaniels as opposed to Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. Oh, I hope I've explained that well. For one, Cavapoos are really difficult to find in rescue centers. They're a very popular breed, especially at the minute. The prices of them have rocketed. It is so wrong. I noticed a significant increase in price because like I said, I've been looking for almost a year for actually the Cavapoo for us and the prices have tripled because of lockdown. It is absolutely disgusting. I feel like lots of breeders are just taking advantage of the fact that people want a puppy right now. So if you're gonna take one thing away from this video, please let it be that if you decide your family would suit a puppy more than a rescue dog, make sure you find a good breeder. I can't tell you enough how important that is. Over the past six months, I've probably dealt with around seven breeders, ones that I found online, ones that have contacted me, local ones, ones that are far away, and none of them were right until we found Sunny's breeder and we were let down by a couple of dogs. I actually put a deposit on a puppy before Sunny that ended up not sitting right with me. So I actually pulled out of that and I'd lost my deposit, but it was much better than having a dog that was unhealthy and that I wasn't 100% sure about. It's easy to get caught up when you're looking for a puppy and think, oh, these ones are so cute though. Honestly, I can't tell you enough. If something inside your gut doesn't feel right, leave it because there will be a reason for it. Sunny is the first pet we've had as a family ever because of my dad's allergies. Growing up, we had fish. That was it. Is a fish even a pet? So the world of breeders was completely new to us. I think it's fair to say I learned a lot along the way. If you would like me to do a video about finding a good breeder, then let me know because I'm happy to do that and share my experience with you in detail, but I'm not gonna go into it too much in this video. Anyway, after months of searching, we found this really good breeder. The puppies weren't actually born yet. I put a wanted advert on Pets for Homes and this lady texts me saying, Just wanted to let you know in case you're interested. She wasn't pushy. She wasn't too forward. So we had a little chat back and forth. I said, yeah, when the puppies are born, let me know. We'll make our decision because I didn't want to say yes or no right then. We wanted to see health certificates, which she was more than willing to show us. She was just a very nice lady. It was her family pet. And the best thing was that she didn't let us put a deposit down on a puppy until we had met them, which to me was just such a sigh of relief that this wasn't a scam. And she said she wanted us to bond with a certain pup and make sure it was all right with us before we put the deposit down. She wanted to avoid disappointment. She wanted to avoid any negativity. So once we bonded with a puppy, then we were allowed to say, yeah, we'd like one. So we went to visit her. She didn't live too far from us. Obviously we stuck to all social distancing guidelines. When the pups were four weeks old, we went to visit and we also met their mum. Their mum was called Darcy. She was such a lovely dog. She had a really nice nature. You could just see it was a lovely environment for the puppies to be brought up in. We saw the health certificates of both the mum and the dad. They were KC registered too. Everything was just what I was hoping to find in a breeder. So we decided to put the deposit down. We secured Sunny. We chose her. She was the one that we bonded with. She was the calmest of the girls. We knew we wanted a girl. There were three girls and three boys in the litter. She was the one that was really calm and she was a little bit nervous. And I just picked her up. I gave her a cuddle and she snuggled into my neck and I thought, this is the right one. This feels fine. Anyway, fast forward, Sunny had had her microchip. She had had her first injection. So we went to go and pick her up. We were also given a scented toy with the smell of her litter mates and her mum on it to make her feel more comfortable at home. She'd already had one health check to say that she was fine but we actually signed a contract with the breeder as well that we had to take her for a health check within three days of picking her up. And if anything was wrong with her, we would take her straight back to the breeder and basically the breeder would look after her. So we also took her for a health check a couple of days after we got her and our vet also said, nope, she's absolutely perfect. She's a lovely, healthy puppy and that was the most important thing for us. So now that I've explained the reason we went to a breeder and the reason we needed a Cavapoo, being my dad's allergies and also being our first pet, we felt like after looking into rescue dogs and hearing other people's experiences, it would just be best for us as a family to have a little puppy that was basically a blank canvas because we didn't know what we were doing. She doesn't know any wrongs. She's not naughty. We don't have any behaviors to fix and I'm not saying that every rescue dog is like that. Of course, I'm not saying that. It just worked out for our family that she was the best option. I hope that makes sense. So you might have a few questions. Obviously, like I mentioned, she is my puppy. She's my responsibility. I'm 21 and some people would probably argue that this isn't the best time to get a puppy because I haven't settled down yet and I am gonna be moving out in the near-ish future. Maybe not for a couple of years but she's still only gonna be young. So the plan for when I move out at the minute is that she will be coming with me to my house. I understand that it restricts me massively in that I need a house rather than a flat. I need a garden and I am more than willing to compromise for this little dog. However, if circumstances do change and I do end up in a flat or something like that, or I don't know, you can never predict the future, then she is more than welcome to stay here at my parents and they will take care of her. I will still pay for everything. I don't feel like I need to go into detail for that but basically, she will always have a very loving home whether it's with me or whether it's with my parents. We all love her as if she's all of our dog. She is all of our dog. She's a family dog. She's just my responsibility. You tired, girl? She loves burying her face in you. It's so weird to me that she will be my family dog one day, like for my family and my kids. Like I said, before we picked her up, I overthought it so much because a dog is a long commitment. But now that we have her, I don't know why I was worried because I just can't imagine life without her now. Anyway, my new puppy mum life is having a floor covered in toys. I do want to say though, I am really sorry if you're offended by my decision of buying a puppy. I hope I've explained my reasons well and I hope you can accept my decision. Obviously, I would recommend you look into getting a rescue dog first but everybody's situation is different and I think it all comes down to what's best for the dog and for us, a puppy just fit our life better. If you do have any questions, let me know in the comments down below and I will answer them in Sunday's vlog. Obviously, Sunny's gonna be in a lot of my vlogs now but I'm gonna make sure not to make all my content around the puppy because I know some people literally don't care. So I'm not gonna be replacing my content with puppy content. I'll probably just upload a few bonus videos of things I bought for her. I don't know, let me know if you've got any puppy videos that you want to see about finding a good breeder, about training, I don't mind. Let me know in the comments down below and I'll be sure to do those for you. But let's finish on a positive note. The main thing is, is that she is so loved by everyone in our family. She's such a calm little dog. She's the perfect nature for us. She's really settled in, she's doing really well and she's a healthy little dog so we're gonna have a good time together. But anyway guys, thanks for watching this video. I hope you enjoyed it. I'm so glad that you've all met her now. I feel like I can finally go back to posting normally on Instagram. You're so little. Do subscribe to see my future videos of me and Sunny. Come along for our adventures. Give this video a big thumbs up for this cute little one. You're wiggling, go on then, you go lie down. I'll stop disturbing you. But anyway, thanks for watching. Have a lovely week and I'll see you again soon with another little vlog. With this little pickle. Bye guys. Love ya. Say love ya. No mom, I wanna go to sleep.