The last time I brought home a puppy, I was a second-year vet student, driving back from Oregon to Davis in a small car with a two-pound Pomeranian tucked into a blanket on the passenger seat in my classmate’s lap. She was tiny. Perfect. Absolutely certain that the world belonged to her.
She was with me for sixteen years.
I lost her in 2020. And it has taken me six years to feel ready for another one.
I am telling you this because it has been on my mind a lot lately. You see, we are bringing home a puppy soon. And every quiet decision that has led up to this moment has felt like its own small ceremony.
I did not know it would take six years.
Grief is not linear, and heart dogs leave a very specific kind of imprint. She was the little dog who sat in vet school lectures with me. She traveled with me. She was there for every version of me I became before I built the practice, vet student, vet intern, vet, getting married, first child, first house, second child, first job, second job, practice owner… All of it.
For a long time, opening my heart to another dog felt like it would somehow be a betrayal of her. And then, slowly, it started to feel like something else. Like maybe the best thing I could do to honor her was to love another dog with the same fullness she taught me.
So we said yes.
Choosing a puppy at this stage of life is very different than it was when I was 24.
I know more now. I care more about the details. I ask questions I didn’t know to ask back then. I have spent 20 years watching what happens in dogs’ bodies when the early weeks of life go beautifully — and I have spent 20 years watching what happens when they don’t.
The microbiome. The vaccination and deworming schedules. Early neurological stimulation. Whether the puppies got their mother’s colostrum in the first golden window of life. Whether they had a soft, thoughtful weaning or were dropped straight from milk to kibble at four weeks. All of it matters. All of it shapes the animal that arrives at your door on their eighth week of life.
I want to be involved in as much of it as I can. Because I know now that the first eight weeks of a puppy’s life are the foundation for everything that comes after — their temperament, their gut, their immune system, their resilience to stress. And most families never see those weeks. Never get to influence them. Never even know they are the most important part of the whole story.
I want to honor that window this time.
I also want to be honest with you about something.
People have asked me why I chose to work with a breeder for this puppy instead of adopting. And that is a longer conversation than one newsletter can hold — but the short answer is that both paths can be beautiful, and both can be right for different families. For our family, at this stage, with two growing children and the specific temperament and health considerations I am watching for as a clinician, and wanting to study the microbiome and gut health from early age, working with a truly thoughtful breeder is what feels right.
I hold no judgment either way. There are extraordinary rescue dogs waiting for homes right now, and there are extraordinary breeders quietly doing the work of raising healthy, well-socialized, deeply loved puppies. Both are true. Both matter. Both can coexist.
What I care about most is that the choice — whichever one a family makes — is made with intention, with information, and with the whole picture in view.
This week on the podcast, I sit down with Heather Gibson, the founder of Big Hearted Breeders. She is one of the most thoughtful people I have ever met in this space. Before she was a breeder, she was a foster parent for children with severe trauma for over a decade. Her path to this work began by watching her own foster children heal through their bond with animals.
We talk about what actually happens in those first eight weeks. Early neurological stimulation. Socialization. What thoughtful health testing looks like on the parents. Why colostrum is a golden window that cannot be replicated later. How to spot a breeder who is doing the work with heart versus one who is running a business. And how veterinarians and breeders — who have historically been in tension with each other — can start working together for the good of the puppy in front of them.
It is such an important conversation. And it comes at exactly the moment I needed it, personally.
I will share our new puppy with you when she arrives.
Until then — if you have ever lost a heart dog, I want you to know it is okay if it takes you longer than you thought to open your heart again. Grief has its own timing. So does love.
And when you are ready — the right dog will find their way to you.
Give your sweet ones an extra long scratch from me today. 💜
— Dr. Lily