Your brown lab puppy photo is worth signing on for.
The brown lab puppy is now almost 18 weeks old. He was about 5 weeks old in the picture. He is such a serious dog. He was born within 12 hours of the death of our previous 14.5 year old yellow lab who was the sweetest dog of all the dogs we have had. His name is RijL(after the star Rigel, which means courageous and benevolent).
We went to the breeder to visit the puppies when they were all weaned at 5 weeks. She brought them all out in the puppy run and all of them ran over to be petted and lick our hands. But after about a minute they all ran back to play with each other---all except one that is. One of the males, just sat there looking at us---staring into our eyes---while all his peers ran around him bumping into him, and biting him. But he never moved. He just kept staring at us. So we picked him up, and when we I held him he stared at my wife, and vice versa when she held him. So the breeder says, “Were do the Volstag test to select one for you, but clearly he has chosen you. I have seen puppies do this often---but never ever this young. This is the first 5 week old puppy I ever saw do this in 30 years of breeding.” She marked his ear with blue paint so she could remember him. She commented though, “True to be told, I really don’t need the blue paint, he is different than the others and seems like an adult dog in a puppy body.” So we put him down into the pen again. And he sat there looking forlorn like we didn’t choose him after all. He acted like he expected to go with us right then. So we told him, we were coming back for him in three weeks, and then he went and played with the others, BUT HE KEPT HIS EYES ON US WHERE EVER HE WENT.
The breeder took photos several times in the three weeks. You could always pick him out. He was the only one sitting and staring directly into the camera. When we took him 3 weeks later, he never whined or whimpered once, and he moved right in as if he’d been living with us for the past few years. Now he sleeps 10 hours a night, and actually starts harassing me to go to bed by 9:00. I won’t let him go up to the upstairs crate in our BDR until he does one more Poo.
My wife has not been into taking care of him so much, since she got a cat the same time our dog died. So I have been spending 95% of the time raising him. My wife spends upstairs time with the cat, and I spend downstairs time with the dog. We meet for meals, to go out together, and of course night(where we have only been apart for 21 days in 45+ years.)
RijL is getting darker and darker. My wife is allergic to milk, and so he is getting to be a very very dark chocolate---clearly 90% cacao now. He is almost black now.
