Ever have one of those moments that could have passed you by, but you grabbed it and life changed in an unexpected way as a result?

Saturday our town held its annual festival.  As Rowan and I were on a mission to get balloons for the shop table I spotted a flash of orange and white out of the corner of my eye.  It was a lady walking a Brittany and they were heading down a street away from us. I hesitated, but then sent Rowan off at a run to see it, as we are still sadly missing our old Briar the Britt (pictured below, in May at age 11.5, with Archie).

Well, this sweet little female could have been Briar's sister, they looked so similar. Turns out she was, in fact, a neice. And that she had puppies in the spring. And that one buyer fell through and the remaining puppy was at the breeder's home. See where this is headed?

I have been staunchly insisting that one dog (Archie the Sheltie) was plenty. And Arch just turned one.  I casually mentioned the puppy to Andy, who said, to my shock, 'sure, why not?'.

There are a million why nots.
But then,  life is too short to worry about a little more dog and hair, and besides, I am a big believer in the power of connections... and when one falls in your lap, you had best pay attention and follow the thread.  A call to the breeder, a 300 km trip to her home and back on Sunday and we brought home our busy ball of Brittany enthusiasm.
 We have named him Hooligan.  Or rather, we had a list of names and they all fell away when we met him. He is Hoolie the Hooligan. Interestingly enough, a 'hoolie' is defined as a big party in a small space~ the best definition of a Brittany that I have ever heard!


This pup can cause more mischief in a 5 minute span (that is, his first five minutes home he ate a toadstool, a feather, a stick and jumped in the lake and then the mud) than Archie has in his whole 15 months, but our house feels 'right' again, the spirit is restored by one silly, freckle faced, floppy eared pup.  I know his great-uncle Briar would approve.