Elissa and I are proud to announce that we have a new member of our little family. We picked up a 6 month-old black lab (mix) from the Tri-county humane society in St Cloud. The shelter had him named "Cash", but that's a pretty lame name if you ask me. So we named him -- while phonetically the same, it's significantly better: Cache. :-)
I don't have pictures of him on the computer yet, but I'm sure you'll be seeing plenty of him in the future. He's really playful, but at six months he's trainable. In fact, he came to us pretty well-trained already! He knows how to sit and stay, and he's great off the leash (never really strays far away and comes back to you when you call him). He pulls a bit on the leash, so we're working on that. He also doesn't dig the kennel, but he'll get over that with some work.
Both of us are super excited to have a dog, and he's been a blast to have around so far (though we've only had him since about 5pm today!). w00t!
And what do the cats think about this development? : - )
So, having had him the weekend have you had a lot of Cache seeking? :)
If the Lab side comes through he'll be a great family pet, but work on the leash pulling young - it's a common Lab thing. Best we've found is forget about clipping to the collar, go for a harness. When he's still young you can use a training harness that automatically shortens under the front legs when he pulls (lifting the body) and slackens as soon as he stops pulling. Once he has been trained with that and rarely pulls, switch to a normal harness - and if you're hiking get him his own backpack, they love "working" with their family/pack.
(And Hector sends regards to Cache)
Thats awesome! I'm sure Cache will have you and Lis trained in no time! Can't wait to see the pics.
@Russ -- shockingly, Pixel is handling this better than Miikka. But overall they're both doing fine. Cache just needs to learn his size before the cats will be comfortable around him though!
@S-Copinger -- Yeah, we have a halter harness for him. He's actually a very bright dog though and has been learning not to pull on the leash during walks without putting the harness on. So we'll see whether we need to use it or not!
@Mike -- once the x-fer cords get here from the moving company from hell, I'll be posting pics. :-D
Congratulations for the new member of your family. If it makes any trouble, call Cesar Millán (Dog Whisperer) and surely he will ever train him to program in RealBasic :)
Pets are my passion. Hope you enjoy it as much he will enjoy you.
Amando