August 2008 Archives

Hound

We have a new addition to our family, please welcome Sampson McDuff our beautiful 9 week old, black labrador puppy!

I have never owned a dog in my life, and neither has G but I have been talking about it for the past 2 years when I fell in love with the beagle breed. G always put his foot down (and rightfully so) as I don't think we were really ready for the responsibility of dog ownership then. The subject had come up again recently, partly as a school mum had offered me her beagle for free but also after seeing the Guide Dog, Ollie on the recent Australian series of Big Brother. I think that was when I switched to researching labradors and found out what a fantastic gentle breed they are and how perfect they are for a household with kids and cats. I have only ever known a couple of labs but they were big gentle giants.
So shortly after I start getting into the whole labrador research, along comes Amanda who announces her family has just picked up their new black labrador puppy, Bella to be a companion for 2 year old Lucy ( a yellow labrador) I see the pics of Bella and fall more in love with the breed than ever, a few days later while chatting on MSN with Amanda the next planet seemed to move into alignment when she mentioned the breeder was headed to Adelaide the next day to sell the two male black lab pups left, she gave me their number and I started *really* doing my homework on vaccination costs, microchipping costs,registration,de-sexing etc so I was very prepared when G came home from work and could give him all the information that he would ask. We had previously talked about getting a big family fish tank around Xmas time but I really felt that long term a puppy with which the kids could be more interactive with would be much more fun than fish.
We talked about it a lot that night and the next morning G gave me the go ahead to call the breeder and arrange to view the pup. The next planet fell into alignment when we found that the breeders were actually staying just down the road from us, less than 5 minutes drive from our house! We met our pup on Saturday evening and after a big doggy shopping spree we brought him home at lunchtime on Sunday.
The kids had no clue at all what we had been planning so when G picked them up from my Mum's where they had spent the day while we prepared the house and brought pup home, they were completely stunned to walk down the hallway and have a little black bundle of energy come charging down the hallway to meet them.
So he's been with us two weeks now, and was finally named Sampson McDuff on Saturday.
Sampson was his fathers name, and also just a good strong name, McDuff means "son of black" plus Amanda is forever calling me a Duffa too so it seemed well suited.
He's been very good settling in, and he made laugh earlier in the week when I was showering Scarlett and he found his way into the bathroom, saw the shower was on and with barely a second of hesitation he jumped right in with Scarlett! He's definitely a water loving dog! I can't wait to get a little more basic obedience started with him, we have found a trainer that is going to come to our house and show us how to set Sam some boundaries and hopefully show us how to stop him nipping our feet and fingers.