In  early March, AGR was contacted by a Goldendoodle breeder who had a litter of
7-week-old puppies she wanted to surrender. One of the puppies obviously had megaesophagus, so she suspected that his four siblings, who were asymptomatic, had this condition, too, and knew she could not sell the puppies. A previous litter of
9 puppies by the same Golden and Poodle parents all had megaesophagus and 8 of them had to be sent to the Bridge. The breeder had had X-rays done on the current four that showed no symptoms but the results were inconclusive. So, we took the entire litter knowing we would have some significant vet expenses (we might have to have all of them go through extensive testing to have megaesophagus confirmed)
– but that’s what Rescue does a lot of the time. The five puppies all needed deworming (twice), a full set of DHPP vaccines (every three weeks for three doses), leptospirosis (two doses), bordetella and rabies vaccines and will eventually be spayed or neutered. An exam was done on four of them and a full diagnostic work-up was done on Guinness, the one who obviously has megaesophagus (he would regurgitate food or water if he did not ingest it in a fully upright position).  AGR transporters drove to Camp Verde to  pick up the puppies. There were two black ones (one male and one  female) and three gold ones (one male and two females).  For names, they were given an Irish theme for St Paddy’s Day:

Keely - “Beautiful” red and green collar
Kiera - “Black-haired girl” red collar
Aiden - “Fiery One” dark blue collar
Charm - “Lucky Charm” black collar
Guinness - I just like the name and it’s Irish; light blue collar
All the puppies met their prospective families at our foster's house before they were moved to their forever homes.

Charm, now called Maple, is one of the three blond Goldendoodles. A family with active but well-behaved children is often a good family for an active puppy and that is what this puppy got her adoptive family. They said:

She loves the kids she plays with them, lies on their feet when she’s tired and my son says she’s his best friend. Our kids have a new sibling. She fits in perfectly with our little family – I have another child in the house! We had a baby shower for her and she got lots of toys! She is our little girl and we love her so much! She is fun, playful, tolerant, loving and a cuddle bug. Maple’s nickname is Peppa Pig because when she is very happy she grunts like a pig and you can’t help but love her even more when you hear her so happy. Maple loves ice, as soon as she hears that ice machine she runs and sits nice and patiently waiting for her piece of ice. Maple loves playing catch and has mastered bringing the ball back and dropping it. She loves running as fast as she can in the park – we often say she is more Golden than  Poodle. Maple enjoys watching TV. She has all of these wonderful attributes, but don’t be fooled, this little girl talks back if she doesn’t agree with you, even if she is walking away she will turn around and argue as she walks. Maple gets the zoomies and she will run, run, run inside the house crashing into everything and just keeps going as if she didn’t realize she was knocking over everything in her path – it is hilarious! She is huge, but she thinks she’s one of those teacup Doodles. She gives hugs, lays her body on you when you’re sitting down and if you move one inch she is sure to notice and will move an inch also. It does not matter where you go, you can always look back and know that Maple is there right behind you. We love our girl and are so grateful to AGR for giving us the opportunity to adopt her.