A Golden Win

Oakley and Hurley win the 3rd Annual Cutest K-9 Contest presented by PetSuites.

“Doesn’t everybody love a golden retriever?” asked Jennifer Kaperak, owner of golden retrievers Oakley and Hurley, winners of the 3rd Annual Cutest K-9 Contest presented by PetSuite, and take home a grand prize package including five free days of daycare, a free spa day, and a PetSuites swag bag.

Kaperak and her husband Alan adopted Oakley when he was four months old and Hurley when she was eight weeks old. Now, Oakley is three years old and Hurley is two years old. In those few years, they’ve changed Kaperak’s life.

Before adopting Oakley and Hurley, Kaperak and her husband didn’t have any pets in their home for a while after the loss of their two golden retrievers, but adopting Oakley and Hurley was “like a breath of fresh air,” Kaperak said.

“When we got these two, it was almost like a night-and-day difference where you could come home and snuggle a dog, or play with the dog, or snuggle then play, or play and snuggle, or go for a walk. It’s very different,” Kaperak said.

Oakley and Hurley are still young pups, but their personalities shine through.

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Oakley is well known as “the ornery one,” so much so that when Kaperak started an Instagram account for her goldens, she named it @ornery_oakley_and_hurley_girly.

“If you don’t hear him around you, you think he’s getting into something. Whether it’s the trash, or whether it’s stealing somebody’s shoe and running around the house with it,” Kaperak said. “He doesn’t jump on the table, but he’s so long that he will get on his hind legs, pull something off the table, and then you look at him and he’s like, ‘I know, I’m not supposed to have this,’ so you go to him, and then of course, he takes off running and makes it a nice little chase game for you.”

Hurley, on the other hand, “is definitely a people pleaser,” Kaperak said. “She’ll follow you around the house. If you get up off the couch, she’s getting up and following you into the kitchen, or she’s getting up and following you to the basement.”

Though the two goldens have very different personalities, they love to play like brother and sister.

“Sometimes they chase each other but they play every day. Every single day. They are playing with another whether it’s tug, whether it’s fetch,” Kaperak said.

Kaperak loves to be active with Oakley and Hurley, but out of everything, she loves taking them to the beach the most. The two pups have been on multiple trips to North Carolina where they play and lounge on the beach all day.

“They love to get in the water. We get in the water with them; we play fetch with them. Hurley really likes to sit on the shoreline and let the waves come up against her butt and let the toy be pushed up a little bit so then she can get up, go get the toy, come back, lay down and put the toy on the shoreline again,” Kaperak said. “Oakley likes to chase his toy in the water.”

One of Kaperak’s funniest memories with Oakley and Hurley also has to do with the water. When she took the pups to a dock for the first time, they didn’t understand how docks work.

“They had never jumped off a dock before, so the first time they both wanted to jump off the dock, they were running after a ball and then realized, ‘oh, this comes to an end,’ tried to put on the brakes and both of them went right in the water,” Kaperak said.

Most of all, Kaperak enjoys her companionship with Oakley and Hurley.

“Every time you turn around, they’re there. So if you have a bad day, they’re there for you. If you have a good day, they’re there for you,” Kaperak said. “They are the best, most fun loving dogs. They get along with other dogs. They love to interact with people. They love to interact with other dogs.”

“I love that they are always there,” Kaperak said. “The party never stops with them.”

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