winter 2008

Here is Sam almost a year old. He is a friendly playful dog. He loves his long walks in the woods and chasing sticks. We walk for about an hour a day. He's quite the collector. He'll bring his favorite stick home and add it to his others. (We have a lot of sticks! I have to watch out when snowblowing the driveway).

He's a good family dog and is happiest when we're all home.

The current Sam

This is Sam today, notice that he hasn't changed much! lol his head is still turned always ready to learn something new! We love having him in our family! He's adjusted really well to a family life and he's just a really great dog. The bitting and chewing have finally come to a stop. All of his adult teeth are in. We found that as Sam started to settle down, he started to find spots for himself around that house. As you can see, he's made the couch and favorite sleeping spot of his and every night, you'll be guranteed to find him on the couch if you're looking for him. He's found a liking to a pair of Gus's old worn out shoes, and they're now one of his favorite toys, along with his soccer balls that we got him. He is a great new addition to the family, and everyone loves him, including Gus's customers.

Life and times with Sam

This is Sam about a month and half after we got him. As you can see, he's changed quite a bit since the other pictures! He's learned a lot of basic comands too, like sit, stay and give a paw. Right now were still working on laying down, but it's comming along quite well. You probably have also noticed that in one of these pictures, Sam's ears are starting to come up. For the first little while, his ears were down, and they were down for such a long time, that we were worried that they'd never come up! But a couple of weeks later they stayed up. Just when we thought that they were going to stay up permenetly, they fell again! Since that time, his ears keep going up and down. Currently, we have one ear up and one ear down, but after we taked to the vet, our worries were put to rest when she said that some dogs take longer to put their ears up then others, and that we will eventually see his ears up permenently! Sam's very good with children. When he saw his first child, he stood looking a little shocked! We all think that he didn't know that people could be so very small! Be he's very gentle and sweet to children, playing fetch, and licking, but he's never bitten a child. And all of our businesses customers love him. We've even had some of our regular customers come in stop, look around and ask, "Hey where's your dog?"

Sam's first day at our house

These two pictures were taken the first day that we had Sam in our house. When we first brought him into the house he was very curious and quite afraid of his new surroundings, but after a couple hours of walking around the house, Sam became quite comfortable to the house and soon became quite at home. After a while though, our two house cats came on the scene but Sam seemed to be adjusting to thier presence in the house as well. Everyday we take him out for walks, and he follows close by and never really strays too far from us, but we find that he has a very short attention span, and because of that we need to always find something new and interesting to keep him busy. Sometimes we practice new tricks with him, or sometimes we'll play with a ball, or sometimes we'll just run around. He doesn't really like walking on a leash, but he enjoys walking long distances.

Puppy pick up day!!!!

This was the day that we went to go pick up the puppies, our Sam was the green collared puppy, but you probably can't see him on this picture. There were nine puppies, and before we arrived we had been in contact with Michelle for quite an extensive period of time, therefore because of such, we were given the option to arrive early so we may see all of the test that the puppies must go through, such as the temperment tests. These tests are performed so each puppy can be properly match with the owner, based on the temperment that the owner would like to be. Before the puppies were born, we had to fill out a sheet with the characteristics we would prefer in our puppy, and based on this information, when the puppies have their temperment test, it helps match up the perfect puppy for your family. Because of our location though, we couldn't see all of the trials, just a few of the tests. But the overall the trials that we did see were very well interesting, and the whole experience was very well organized. Once in the car, the puppy was a little disoriented that it was leaving it's home, but after a while, he got used to the car and our family and warmed right up!