It's really hard to blog about puppy raising when you aren't raising a puppy.
We did survive a key test: We puppy-sat for a weekend in December, and it went really well. Winston is a handsome 16-month-old boy who's going IFT in March. He is so calm and well-behaved, lovely house manners. He was wonderful with the kids, even though he's not normally around small ones. My husband was ready to steal him and not give him back to his raiser!
The weekend we had him, we even got snow -- about 18 inches over the course of the weekend. It was so much fun to be outside romping in the snow with a Lab again ... even if Winston managed to lose not one, but two toys in deep drifts! Ah, well, they'll turn up again.
Here's Winston and the kids.
So husband is now talking about next puppy around May .. we shall see. There's a lot up in the air right now, including my work situation. Hopefully we will have some answers by March.
I'm still staying involved in GEB; I do the Maine region website, and I may be mentoring a new raiser, if she decides to go ahead and get a pup.
Oh, my other thing to share: Cool Christmas present! My husband got me a red fleece vest with the GEB logo. Very warm and stylish, and very handy for working a pup!
My other plan for 2009 is to do a better job at keeping up with everyone else's blogs.
Happy New Year to all!
