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big wheels keep on rollin'

Last weekend at Cui Hua Shan was really great. We ended up just going for the day and it was the perfect amount of time. It was a slow hike up as we adults had decided to let the kids take there time and stop and play as the mood hit. The hike up was worth it for a beautiful lake that sat at the top. The kids stripped down (Maddie and Peter completely stripped) and had a ball playing in the icy water. A good crowd of hikers watched us foreigners allowing our kids to play in cold water in September and although I didn't see heads shaking in disapproval I'm sure there were some. But among them were also those who thought, "how fun", I'm sure. And fun it was.

This week has been a bit stressful. We decided on Tuesday that we need to sell/get rid of Sukey. It's a really hard decision to arrive at. We started spreading the word to folks in our complex hoping that someone would be looking for a dog or know of someone who was. Yesterday YaLi called me during class to say a guy was at the house to look at Sukey. I told her go ahead and let him see her but don't sell her yet! When I got off the phone I had the hardest time concentrating and then at break time when I told Phil about the call I started crying. It was different knowing someone was actually willing to buy her rather than just wanting someone to buy her. In the end we didn't sell her to the man. He wasn't willing to pay enough and he just wasn't who we wanted to give her to. He sells dogs so we knew what kind of environment we'd be sending her to.

Yesterday afternoon I really started having doubts about selling her but Phil still thinks it's the best thing. Our number one reason to sell her is because unfortunately for us dogs come into the world as puppies and we didn't realize until we owned her what having a puppy actually meant. What it means is lots and lots of work. We already have lots and lots of work before adding Sukey to our lives and it's just too much. I wish we could hire someone else to raise her and then give her back to us. If we didn't care how she behaved then it wouldn't be an issue but we want her to be a well-behaved dog who listens to us and that takes a lot of work. We don't want a big dog that won't listen to us. If a toy poodle jumps up on your leg that's quite a different thing from a full-size greyhound jumping up on you.

So, if you hear of a loving family in this area of the world looking for a puppy, let us know.

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