With the whirlwind of the last 2 months, I never realized I never made a formal introduction on the blog for our latest family member – our fluffy, loving great bernese, Bentley!
On December 1st, 2019 we picked up our little guy and brought him to his furever home. He’s been the very best addition the last two months, and I cannot wait to continue watching him learn and grow and become the family member we’ve longed for for so long.
A little backstory (because I think a few people think that it was a rash decision lol):
We have always wanted a dog. Justin and I both had pups growing up and we both love dogs.
We’ve been living together for 5 years now, and there’s always been an excuse not to get one – apartment living, the money, the commitment, the responsibility, being tied down – always something.
Over the last year or two we really narrowed down that we eventually wanted a big, fluffy, family oriented dog.
We started to do our research on breeds and we decided that when we were going to get one, we were going to be looking for bernese mountain dogs, great pyrenees, newfoundlands, retrievers, collies – that kind of thing. We always know we wanted a mutt, so any mixture of those would be perfect.
Fast forward to the tail end of 2019 – I got laid off from my summer job, had another completely fall through, and we really decided that the timing was just right. I had lots of time to be home for the puppy which would be so ideal for training.
We always kind of gandered the internet for pups, and in late November we came across these adorable bernese mountain dog/great pyrenees (with a wee bit of newfie) pups.
We couldn’t believe it – those were exactly what we were looking for!
One week later and our little Bentley man was ours forever.
Ultimately we had decided that the timing was never going to be absolutely perfect, sacrifices are always going to have to be made when you want to take risks at something so special, and to sometimes just say eff it and stop trying to “do the right thing” about absolutely everything.
He’s been the very best addition to our family and I couldn’t imagine life without him.
Here’s a Q&A about little man to answer some basic info about him!
What breeds is he?
His dad was a bernese mountain dog, and his mom was a great pyrenees with a little bit of newfoundland in her. If you look up a Great Bernese you’ll find lots of pups that look like him.
He had maybe 7 pups in his litter, half were black bernese mountain dog colors and the other were more of the golden/ginger color he is.
We picked him because he was the chillest (& chunkiest) of the three golden ones we got to choose from. We also love his little white markings all over and he was the only one with those.
What’s his name?
His name is Bentley! We often get asked (mostly from the older generation lol) “Oh, like the car?” When yes, I guess it is lol, but I actually got the name from a small town in central Alberta that we’d driven through many times to go out camping.
I’ve loved the name for years and really had to think if I wanted to keep it for my child one day or use it for our pup. It took us about 2 days of having him to firmly decide on it, and we still love it!
And yes we do joke about getting other pets and naming them Beamer & Benz lol.
How big will he be?
Or more often worded – whoa, do you realize how big he will be!?
Yes. Yes we do lol.
The breeds he’s made up of are large breeds and we have known that from the start. We wanted a big pup, and we even picked the chunkiest from the litter.
He’s technically classified as a Giant breed, and we’re estimating he’ll be around 120-130 lbs. Lots of fluff = the best snuggles.
What’s his personality like?
Though he’s only four months old at the time, we’ve really started to see his personality shine through.
He LOVES people and will snuggle all day long if you let him. He crawls into your lap (which is getting much smaller for him the bigger he gets lol) anytime you sit on the ground and is the biggest suck.
Being around his people is his favorite thing and food is basically life. We’ve had to get him a puzzle bowl to eat his meals because otherwise he just inhales it.
Treats are also his favorite, so he’s a pro at sit, stay, shake, lay down and come is a work in progress depending on how exciting the backyard is at the time lol.
We think he’ll be pretty relaxed and lazy, love to snuggle his family and be very loyal. Only time will tell!
Here’s his progression pictures from the day we got him (8 weeks old) up until now (16 weeks old)! He’s grown so so much from a little chunk to a full blown doggo.
We’re so excited to see his growth and take so many adventures with him alongside us.
So there’s our little guy. I post updates on my Instagram about his growth and all the silly things he does, so make sure to follow me over there if you love cute pups.