This story is of Nikki - our gorgeous Groodle, named by our brother Jared. She lives with us her human `mummy & daddy' Amanda & Matthew in South Australia.

She was born on the 26th May 2006. We found Nikki at a local pet store when she was already 12 weeks old, and chose her because she was the smallest of the 3 left.

Every day we can't believe how lucky we have been to get such a gorgeous dog both inside and out, we love her to bits and are very proud of her. So proud I'm sure our friends and family get tired of us talking about her, all the time and referring to her as though she was a child, but to us, she is our baby!!

This is Nikki @ 13 wks, at one of my work events. ->

She just looks so tiny back then. I use to be able to hold her with one arm she was so tiny!! Now, 12 months later, IF I pick her up for cuddles or what ever the reason its too big arms trying to hold her. Back at this stage she weighed 5kg, now 12 months later she's 20kg, and still more growing to come.

She's very smart, it only took her about 3 weeks to be toilet trained, and within a year she has learnt to sit, stay, roll over, dance, drop, give, beg, shake, heal and most importantly she has learnt to collect our morning paper, which is her favourite trick.

<-Nikki has a very friendly nature, she is a bit timid at first with both dogs and humans but once she gets to know them she will love them forever, especially her beloved Poppy.

Nikki loves the beach; she has many friends at our local dog beach.

She loves bath time, for the first 6 months when it was bath time she would run away and hide, but now we mention bath time and no joke, she jumps into the bath herself she loves it that much, she loves being washed and playing in the water, and then the towelling time afterwards, and only when its really cold do we use the hairdryer which she doesn't mind either.

About ½ hour away from where we live there's a dog park, all enclosed and the dogs can run loose. She loves this park the most as there's always someone wanting to play with her here and such a big area to run in. Plus as said, it's a ½ hour trip away and she loves the car rides, with her head sticking out, but if we have the windows down all the way she really loves to hang out so you have to grip onto her, cheeky monkey!!

There's not many things that scare her, only the out of the blue loud noise, but then again she gets very curious as to

what it is, and off she trots to investigate. She doesn't like dog canned food at all, and we've only just worked out a routine as to what food she eats, this has been her only downside - food time.

Nikki enjoys dry food in the morning with dry weetbix and at night time she has stir fry meat with again dry food, plain and boring but its got her eating. She's a picky eater, sadly not one that scoffs her food down, so it takes her at least 1hr & ½ to finish her meal. But the Vet has ensured me she's happy and healthy, so I'm happy with that.

She loves chewing, so every day we make sure if were going out she has a chew toy, i.e. a pigs Ear, or some other kind of rawhide. Sadly we have forgotten to put things up, so to date (May 2007) we have lost due to her chewing - 2 phones, 2 remotes, 3 pairs of shoes, 1 wooden door stop, and she has damaged chair legs, 2 screen doors,

She is your typically baby girl and loves her teddies, not just to cuddle but to tear apart, so we're constantly finding old teddies to give her, its just so cute. At night time before we go to bed she grabs her teddy puts it on dads lap, and off she goes to her bed, yes that's right she puts us to bed with a teddy, miss personality.

We've been on the lookout for another Groodle as she needs a friend. We almost got her actual brother a month ago, but just missed out, which would have been perfect, never mind! We're still on the hunt!!

Its quite funny to see how similar all our Groodles are. Nikki loves to sleep on her back with her paws up but loves to be on her tummy with her legs spread like frogs legs. There's also the annoying trait of when taking her for walks, everyone's first question is `what kind of dog is that' im very tempted to make up a sign saying `Hello my name is Nikki and Im a Groodle, Golden Retriever x Poodle) would save us lots of time in explaining every 10 steps.

Here's Nikki at 10 months old, she quickly got very shaggy on us, and we tried our hardest to keep her hair maintained, but before we knew it she had so many massive knots in her fur, we had to get her trimmed. I thought she was beautiful like this so I only wanted a trim but when I went to pick her up the naughty groomers had transformed her into Krusty the Clown, it quickly grew out though, thank goodness, I didn't even recognise her.

But at least the knots are gone, but mummy will maintain Nikki's hair from now on, which so far has been A Ok!!!

In Summer time she gets extremely hot so before we had given her the dreadful hair cut, we tried many things to cool her down, we took her for many swims, gave her plenty of ice cubes which cured her chewing rampage as well as kept her cool and her favourite is being squirted by the spray bottle. The moment she hears it she goes nuts, and as you can see in this photo, she latches on and makes you squirt her like crazy.

This is Nikki now, almost 12 months old with her Uncle Jared. I'm happy to speak to anyone about my little Nikki as I'm extremely proud of her. Visit my page www.freewebs.com/groodlesgroup and sign the guestbook.