Jay and Cassie

Some of you know that we have had a dog named Jay (or better known as “Jay Dog”) since before Hayden was born. He is a big chocolate lab. I am not a crazy dog person but Jay really is a member of our family. The kids love him. If we talk about the whole family going somewhere, Hayley will say, “and Jay Dog too”. I honestly think that Hayley considers him a sibling!!

Jay at our house in Plano

Jay when we first got him

Hayden and Jay at our house in Plano

Hayden, Hayley and Jay playing with bubbles in the backyard.

Hayley watching Jay (not sure why he is in the house!!)

Alex watching Jay

Well, we have some sad new about Jay. He ran away (or something….we are not sure what happened). He has been gone for about two months. The kids handled it better than I would have expected. Hayley still wants to drive around and look for him and they both get sad every now and then when they talk about him. We miss Jay Dog!!

Now if you know my husband, you know that he doesn’t just jump into things. Well, he surprised me when he called and said that he heard about some labs on The Trading Post (if you are not from around here….let me explain what The Trading Post is…..it is a show on the local radio station where people call in if they are trying to get rid of stuff….anything, including dogs). So Cory decides to go check it out. He goes to a house where there are 4 labs (about 3 years old) and the lady that owns them needs someone to take them because she can’t take care of them anymore.

Well, Cory came home with a new dog. Cassie! Like Jay, she is a chocolate lab but she is much smaller than Jay was. Hayley LOVES Cassie and says that Cassie is her “sponsibility”. Hayley walks her around on the leash all the time (she couldn’t do that with Jay because he would just pull her down). Cassie loves to play with play fetch with the tennis ball. Hayden likes this because she lets him throw the ball for her (Jay would only let Cory throw it for him).

Cassie

Cassie and Hayley

While we do miss Jay and even hold on to hope that he might come back some day……we have a new member of our family now. We have really enjoyed getting to know her (well except for all the digging but we won’t talk about all that!!).