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What have your previous comfort retriever owners experience with this
hybrid?
This is a note from one of our comfort
retriever owners:
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Katie continues to impress us.
You can see she's grown in the past two
weeks, and she is eager to please
her new family.
Alex, my youngest son (4), continues to bond
with the puppy in delightful
and unpredicted ways. He is a Star Wars nut, and he is currently
interested in the Lego variety of the characters. These, if you
are
familiar at all with Lego characters, are tiny (about 1 inch tall) and,
because they are Lego AND Star Wars, pricey (about $3.50 per
character).
Katie (puppy that she is), keeps finding them on the floor under his
bookshelf
and carrying them off; he, meanwhile is thrilled that she found his
long-lost
Chewbacca figure or--my favorite--light saber of a Ben Kenobi
figure.
I try to explain that she is taking them away to chew them to bits and
he needs to be more careful, but he is just delighted with his smart
puppy
who is helping him find lost toys.
She also delights in waking him up in the
morning. She waits by
his bedroom door for me to open it for him, then eagerly wiggles into
his
neck, kissing him and jumping all over.
He loves it. And he is usually grumpy
first thing in the morning.
She's been "helping" with our landscaping
projects, enjoying digging
in the dirt and standing under the sifter as we separate sand from
rocks.
She's afraid of the broom, delivering ferocious barks at it. She even
barked
at the neighbor's broom from the street as we walked past. Crazy
girl!
She learned how to climb up to the top of the pile of landscaping
rocks,
looking proud of herself as the queen looked down from the
mountain.
Then chased the rocks as she slid down the side.
She's going the entire night without potty breaks--bed at 10 and not
getting up until 6 a.m.--no whimpering and whining. She has
gotten bigger already, so we got her a new crate yesterday, put an
old, washable pillow in the bottom, and she slept like the Queen of
Sheba
last night--didn't start making a fuss to get up until 8:30.
She's very fond of her basket of toys, and after breakfast, goes
digging
for her favorites--scoring points with Grandma and the boys because her
favorites are those they picked for her (politician!).
She's very smart. She learned "sit" in one day of several,
30-second
training sessions with a clicker and treats. "Lay down" took
about
a day and a half. "Stay" is unclear to her--she wants to dance
and
play in the formal training sessions, but she is getting it in more
practical
ways. She'll wait (mostly) for me to fill her food bowl and place
it and release her to eat. But with the kids out of the house
this
long weekend, I am taking the opportunity to work on "stay" and "shake"
with the distraction-free quiet.
This morning as I caught up on email, I just about fell off my
chair.
Lee let Katie onto the deck (she was standing by the door looking out),
and she goes out and looks around for a couple minutes, walks up to the
screen door (which Lee closed behind her) and takes her paw and puts it
on the bottom of the door, slides it open, and walks in like she's done
it her whole life. What a smart girl!
Everybody who meets her is impressed. She's very mild mannered
and polite. We had to help a friend move a few items into her new
apartment yesterday, and she slept between us in the truck both ways
(half
hour drive), and waited patiently tied to the truck as we hauled the
heavy
stuff in, and slept nicely at my feet while my friend and I talked. We
took her to PETsMART to meet other dogs and people and experience
something
new as a reward (and buy the new crate), and she walked in confidently
once she saw the sliding doors weren't going to hurt her. She met
a full-grown boxer with confidence and politely greeted a bunch of
pulling
at the leash, overly hyper dogs. She got her nails trimmed and
ears
cleaned without blinking, and weathered the drive home in a
thunderstorm
only seeming uncomfortable because I think she needed to go
outside.
She's been good with my older son, too. He had a scare with a
dog when he was about two, and somewhere, subconsciously, he worries
about
dogs. Katie has given me the chance to help him gain
confidence.
She is excited at times, happy to see us, and--typical puppy
behavior--and
latches her teeth into his clothes. He gets a little freaked out,
but it has provided me a good opportunity to teach him that Katie is
the
low dog in the family, and we all love her, but she is the lowest
ranking
family member. I encourage him to show her "who the big dog
is."
We practice "flexing" (like a body builder), "You da big dog!" and how
to give her treats on HIS terms (not her leaping at him) and both boys
are learning confidence with taking charge with the dog. She's so
eager to please that she's adjusting well, too.
Lee's son (9) is only with us every other weekend, and adjusting to
this family life that seems to go on without him has been difficult
since
Lee and I were married last fall, and he was a different kid last
weekend.
Watching over Katie, talking to her and playing with her--he seemed
glad
to be with us all, a really nice development. He has a golden at
home, and Luca is nearly 2, but Ben was impressed with how nicely Katie
was behaved compared to his dog at home.
My parents have tossed around the idea, loosely, of getting a puppy,
and when they met her, they fell in love. I showed them photos of
rescue goldens ("but they will get too big and shed too much!") and
photos
of your goldendoodles ("yeah, but we like how Katie looks!"), and I
think
they are sold on the version of comfort retriever you are
breeding.
Kathy, I have to admit that I was worried about getting a dog,
sight-unseen,
from a breeder more than 500 miles away. I checked your previous buyer
references and called your vet to make sure you were a caring breeder,
but you can't be sure until you meet the dog. I had a "feeling" that
this
was the way to go, that the dog we'd waited for for nearly four years
might
be found at your place, but I was feeling a bit sick to my stomach the
day she was in transit--what if I just spent a lot of money on a
neurotic
mutt? I was so pleasantly surprised when I met her, and the
entire
family is in love with her. It's obvious that you take great care
in the puppies you produce. Katie is wonderful: thanks for helping us
find
the perfect, newest member of our family.
(I'm in marketing, and I am re-reading my email, and the previous
paragraph
sound like sure-fire quoteable web site material, if you don't mind me
saying so:) Feel free to use it!)
Here is a link to some photos. You've seen a few, but I needed
to upload them for far flung contacts :)
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0GcuGrdy1YuMg
Attached is video clip from yesterday, Ms. Wiggles herself cozying
up to my dad. Shameless flirt.
Take care and thanks for all the love you shipped our way two weeks
ago. Now it's time to do some more landscaping--the day is
quickly
slipping away!
Best, H
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