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Wales Online
Wales Online
Jake Meeus-Jones & Steven Smith

Couple let their dog make big life decisions including naming their baby

Meet the couple who let their dog make their big life decisions - such as revealing the gender and choosing the name of their baby. Erica and Frank Derise threw three tennis balls for two-year-old pooch Beau to chase - each with one name written on.

And when he returned with the 'Frankie' ball, that's what they chose for their son. Erica, 27, and Frank, 30, had also let golden retriever Beau reveal the gender - by tucking into a coloured cake.

Erica, a content creator, said: "We incorporate Beau into every major life event, he needs to be involved in everything. He's like our kid - we want him to be a part of things."

Erica and real estate agent Frank had asked their followers for gender reveal ideas. One commenter Beau should be the one to tell everyone the big news - so that's what they did. Beau was given a pink cake to eat - although this actually turned out to be incorrect.

Erica said: "It went wrong the first time. I took a blood test at 10 weeks and the lab results came in from the nurse.

"She gave me an envelope saying it was a girl. It was great, after Beau revealed that we were having a girl.

"I said to Frank 'in your face' as he thought it was going to be a boy. But we went for another ultrasound to reconfirm - and we were told it was a boy!

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"I cried. We were happy regardless, but I remember calling to reconfirm and being like, 'What...?' The gender reveal wasn't a disappointment in how we found out.

"But to find out she gave us the wrong envelope that was kind of heartbreaking. But of course, we're not disappointed that we're having a boy."

Beau picking the baby's name by retrieving a named tennis ball (Erica Derise/SWNS)

After Beau tucked into a second cake - this time with the correct colour - Erica and Frank soon turned their attention to names. They managed to settle on three names, Liam, Andrew, Frankie, but ultimately gave Beau the final say. He returned the tennis ball with Frankie written on.

Erica said: "We were excited to see what he came back with. We couldn't decide, we loved all three. We were kind of undecided whether we wanted to go down the Frankie route because of Frank's name, but he's going to be called Frankie and on his birth certificate it'll say Frank."

Beau eating a gender reveal cake (Erica Derise/SWNS)

Beau also walked down the aisle on their wedding day - which he loved

Erica, from Monmouth County, New Jersey, USA, said: "The most excited was when he waked down the aisle and everyone was cheering for him. He got his own announcement and looked so happy.

"We're so excited for Beau to meet the baby. He's so good with the nieces. He knows to be so gentle. Honestly, Beau is never not happy. He's always smiling."

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