Where Would YOU Go To Get a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever?

About six weeks ago, after a painstaking breed search that was well-chronicled (maybe a little too well-chronicled?) in this blog, I finally determined that Future Dog was going to be a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever.

Next?  The hunt for the right breeder.

I looked into one kennel in New Jersey.  And another kennel in upstate New York.  And a third in Minnesota.  But early on I got stuck on this idea  that it would really be cool to go up to Canada and get a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever from Nova Scotia.  And as anyone who knows me knows, once I became obsessed with a thought like this,  it’s not gonna go away.  My oldest son, Matt, who by some twist of fate (genes??) often alights upon the same idiosyncratic “logic” as my own, agreed that this plan was brilliant.  In fact, according to him, it was the only way to go.

Hence, our journey to Canada last weekend.

We kicked off the trip Saturday morning with a two-hour, get-to-know Halifax bike tour — the harbor,

Point Pleasant, Citadel Hill — under a dazzling late-summer sun.  Before setting out, Camilla, our local tour guide, asked all ten of us in the group what we were doing in Halifax.  We heard the standards — always-wanted-to-visit-but-never-had-a-chance . . . my-sister-moved-up-here-from-Kansas-and-I-really-miss-her — but as you might imagine, I was the only one who was in Halifax to pick out a puppy.  My explanation was followed, of course, by a chorus of “Awww’s . . .”

Post-biking, Matt and I cleaned up at the hotel and set out on our drive to the breeder.  Since nobody at the front desk had even heard of the town of Ardoise, home of Saltydog Kennel, we concluded we weren’t heading to a major metropolis.  Some 40 minutes out of Halifax, on Highway 1, Matt phoned Steve the Breeder.  I thought we were still a long way off, but Steve told us we’d be there in five minutes.  As Matt likes to tell it, upon hearing we were so close, I started to shake with excitement.

Remember:  Ricky had died in early April.  I’d been dog-less by now for over five months.  During that time I’d been thinking and reading and researching, and “interviewing” every

breed from German Shepherd to Norwegian Buhund to Siberian Husky.  I thought back to the first time I’d laid eyes on the tiny beagle puppy who would turn out to be Ricky: how the pictures I took that day would become the classic Ricky pictures, and how the stories of that day would become the classic Ricky stories.  Now we were five minutes from making those memories with Kemba.

Steve and Shelley’s spread was idyllic:  40 rolling acres in rural Nova Scotia, a pond with its own tiny “islands” — and ducks!  (The Tollers were able to tell the real ducks from the decoys, which is more than I could say for Matt and me.)  The adult dogs, a gorgeous shade of red, streaked from their kennel to the pond, where they swam like fish.  The puppies — six plump, adorable little balls of fur (5 boys, one girl) — waddled curiously around the garage, nibbling and fighting each other.  Sometimes they’d just plunk themselves down and fall asleep, wherever they happened to be.

While Steve and I chatted, one puppy, with white paws and a white chest (same as his brothers and sister), but also with a cute little white spot on the tip of his nose, was doing all he could to eat my shoelaces, my sneakers, and my ankles.  I told Steve that was the pup I’d had my eye on.  His face lit up.  “Funny you should say that.  Based on everything you told me in your questionnaire, Green Collar is the one I’d earmarked for you.”

So that was that.  Green Collar would now be Kemba.

We made plans, me and Kemba.  I explained to him that I couldn’t take him home right there and then; that we’d have to wait till the end of October.  But until that time, I’d watch him every day on the Puppy Cam.  Kemba kept gnawing my ankle, so I assume he was good with that.

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