Welcome Hops

This is Hops, our 16 week old yellow Labrador.  She was born on 9/26/14.  Her mom is Surf Betty and her dad is Max.  She came from a litter of 5 and she has a great back story that I will fill you in on if you want to ask.

We are thinking about giving her a first name to go with Hops, and it will likely be a type of Hops.  Right now Noble Hops and Liberty Hops (call her Libby) are in the running.  Jim and Grace like Noble because she is an English Lab.  I like Liberty because I think Libby Hops is cute!

She is what we call a guardian female, which means we agree to breed her up to two times before her 4th birthday.  Of course, that is contingent on her knees, elbows and eyes passing the necessary tests.  We can have the puppies at our house with the help of the breeder or Hops can go to the breeders house to deliver and stay until the pups are weaned.

My two ladies were not impressed at first.  But they have moved into the second stage of emotion now - irritation.  Pretty soon they will move to the ignore stage!  And finally - acceptance!  Ahi is particularly snarly....but that doesn't surprise anyone!

Daisy is enjoying the training sessions I do every morning with Hops - she gets right into the middle of it and does everything I tell Hops to do.  They are so cute laying next to each other in a "down" command and then come running together when I give the "come" command!

So far, she is the laziest puppy I have met.  She is very mellow and likes to sleep a lot.  The vet was really impressed with her temperament and even said "this is the dog I would like."  She has one minor medical issue - she has an umbilical hernia....just like her cousin, Pepper.  Luckily it is no where near the size of Peppers!

She received training before we got her so she knows, sit, down, stay, come, leave it, drop it and fetch.  Plus she knows to bring the bell on the door if she has to go out. 

See the green bell hanging on the door behind her.

oops - her face fell off the bed!

We are looking forward to teaching her about hiking, backpacking, boating and all the other fun stuff we do!

During this mornings training session