Harley Barley Boy!

Harley's back! The Seeing Eye called me last Thursday to tell me I could come get him whenever I wanted to. I really really wanted to come get him on Friday but when my father-in-law heard about everything I was trying to squeeze into Friday combined with the fact that I was going away for the weekend, he said to me..."Sweetie, you're nuts." So I changed my plans and I picked up Harley on Monday.

The number one question since he's been back is did he recognize us. He was gone for exactly 2 years and 2 days and I was worried that he wouldn't remember us at all. Ed said that it wouldn't matter if he did or not since he was such a great dog anyway but I really wanted him to remember us. I waited in an office at the Seeing Eye for them to bring Harley in. There were two other women who worked for the Seeing Eye in the room when Harley came in. He sniffed the room first (it was a new room to him and there had just been another dog in there) and he pretty much ignored the other two women. But he came up to me, jumped up and gave me a kiss before returning to sniffing the room again. Now he was never a very excitable dog so I'm going to say his jumping up to kiss me was the moment when it clicked and he recognized me.

We got in the car and he settled right into the spot he always rode in when he was in my car. Later that evening, he was pretty happy to see Ed too so we think he recognized Ed too.

Ava loves having Harley around. She's from his fifth litter with one of his many girlfriends, Fancy. But we don't think they recognize their relationship at all -- she just thinks it is fun to have somebody around that wants to play with her. We're living with Ed's parents right now while the house is being worked on and their two older goldens don't play with her -- Aiden is grumpy and Bentley is blind. Ava and Harley are having a lot of fun with each other!

We are so happy to finally have a dog of our very own.