Lauren and I picked up our new puppy on Thursday night!

Backstory: Both Lauren and I had been talking about getting a dog for some time, but had both agreed that we wouldn’t actively search for one. We figured that when the time was right, the Universe would provide one (anyone see that movie The Secret?) Anyways, it happened that on Thursday night we picked up an eight month old chocolate Lab named “London”.

First impressions: The dog was a little freaked out by the two people who suddenly showed up in his backyard, and took a little while to warm up to us. After about 10 minutes he began to lose his inhibitions and show us some of his tricks, like “chasing my tail”, “jumping in the wagon” and the ever-so-popular “run around like a crazed berserker”. Unfortunately for me, it was too late, I was in love, and Lauren wasn’t too far behind.

So here’s some pics of our new buddy : London

Within half an hour of his arrival at our house, the dog had pissed, shat and vomited on the floor. Obviously I was a little worried about the house training of our new friend, but as these incidents have not happened since, we chalked it up to first day nerves. What’s amazing about this dog is that he has already been through a year of puppy training, so he’s very well behaved, listening to most commands from us immediately. Coming from a small townhouse in the 905 to a house in the 416 would be stressful for most humans, never mind a dog, but London is taking it really well. His appetite seems unaffected, and he has taken pretty well to having a new set of pack leaders established (thanks :Andre:). We’ve also had a lot of well wishers pop by the house to visit, and this has gone off without any problems either. The one thing that London needs to get used to is being walked on a leash, as he pulls everywhere, but that’s being corrected with the use of a Halti. The other thing is that he’s not neutered, so pretty much all the other dogs he meets hate him, and get aggressive with him, and he has a nasty habit of trying to hump some of Lauren’s female friends (sort of like my brother Andrew!) We are looking into getting his balls chopped this week, so hopefully that will put an end to that. Lauren and I realize how lucky we are to have such a great dog, he’s a gift from heaven, and we know he’s going to have a great life with us here.

Related posts:

1. Our trip to Picton, and how the engagement went down.