Maui 🐾

It seems like forever and only yesterday since Maui left us. We wanted to write to let all his extended family, fans and friends know, but it has taken us this long to be able to find the words and see the keyboard through the tears. Rather than dwell on how heartbroken 💔 we are that his body has left us, we wanted to focus on how happy we are for the time we all had with him.

We picked Maui out from a litter of pups online from a breeder in the UK when we were on honeymoon in Maui in 2010. We had just started LTDD leading up to our wedding and things were ramping up! When we returned from our honeymoon, a part of us knew our lives would never be the same as we were embarking on a wonderful journey building our dream business. Maui was with us every step of the way from the minute we picked him up from the airport.

We had read all about puppies and what to do and not to do. We had a plan for our first puppy! We had the crate ready and on the first night, we put him to bed and went upstairs. A few minutes later, as we drifted off to sleep, we heard him howling and crying. We threw the puppy handbook out the window on day one and scooped him up. Maui looked up at us with his big brown eyes as if to promise us that he would never be any trouble as long as he was with us. From that moment on, he rarely left our side.

Many of you would have met Maui on the dock, in the bus for pickups, in the shop and trailing beside us wherever we went. He was steadfast, an incredible swimmer, and while not a fan of going out on the boat, he loved to meet the boat when it returned from the dives. Looking for love from all the divers and maybe the chance of some snacks dropped on the boat deck. As our business grew with Maui we moved to a tiny shop, then a bigger shop, then we spent two years with him living his best life during COVID on the beach, then a small resort and another new shop. Everywhere we went,  Maui’s dog bed was the first thing we moved. There is no doubt that Maui did more shop shifts than any of us! He did it with out complaint. Steadfast and happy. So many guests throughout the years got their puppy fix away from home. People came back with treats, and toys, some even took him for walks along the beach.

It was not just guests that Maui got to love, but he met all our crew. He worked alongside them as they cared, cuddled and looked after him, part of the LTDD Team.

His happiest moments were greeting guests and running along the sand, husking coconuts. In the last 2 years we have been joined by our bouncing fur ball, Bubbles. He was very nervous on his first trips to the beach. Maui literally taught Bubbles how to swim and surf the waves, how to lose at tug of war and how to dance in the kitchen. Maui lives on in Bubbles !

We keep personal life out of work life but, we want this blog to be a token of our heartfelt thanks to LTDD’s first, and most loyal employee. Raise a glass for our little Maui bear.

If all of us could be little like Maui, the world would be a better place ❤️