Lots of beautiful animals in this thread, and now I finally get to add a story of my own. Mrs. accobra_kid and I decided that, in lieu of presents for eachother on Christmas, we would get a chocolate brown purebread Labrador Retriever puppy!
The litter was whelped on January 9th. 5 males, 3 females. We opted for a female, as we were initially a bit apprehensive about having a large dog in our 1,000 sq. ft. 2-bedroom condo. The females from this breeder are usually more towards the lower end of the breed standards in weight (55 to 65 lbs), so she's actually going to be more of a medium-sized dog. Thankfully we're on the first floor and right next to an exit to our building, but I'm curious if anyone has stories to relate about owning a larger dog in an apartment/condominium.
The dogs are now 3.5 weeks old, which means that we get to pay them a visit and satisfy our puppy fix this coming weekend. Here are a few photos, they're about 3 weeks old in these shots:
Mrs. accobra_kid has had Labs in her family before, but this effectively will be my first dog. We're planning on having her sleep in her crate at night, and we've agreed that she'll only have access to a certain portion of our house until she can be trusted. We've discussed how we want to raise this dog, and agree that raising an ideal family pet may require some tough love early on. However, she balked when when I volunteered to play bad cop with our eventual children in exchange for her doing the same with our dog.
Santa filled my stocking with all sorts of dog items this year. Leash, collar, balls, chew toys, and even one of the best dog toys ever -- a Chuckit!
We're having a hard time agreeing on a name. Short list currently includes Coco, Josie, Lola, Molly, Purdy and Shelby, but we're open to suggestions.