My golden boy will be 2 years old soon. My life has changed for the better once he entered my life: I can’t imagine even a better companion for cycling, skiing and simple walks around than him. This golden optimist is eager to support any crazy idea that I have.
He’s super curious, intelligent, easy to train, though sometimes he behaves pretty badly (I guess that’s because of the age he is). He know what he isn’t allowed to do, but sometimes this rule doesn’t work when he eager to see this or that thing sometimes. Still I have to say that most of the time he is pretty obedient.
Until he was 5 months old, he used to try out everything with his teeth: trash bins, floor covering, doors just because he was very interested to find out what these items consisted of. I can remember those days when he used to steal everything from window sills or any other higher surfaces. He could steal a notebook and tear it out into the smallest pieces or eat two pounds of tomatoes himself in secret. At the same time I can’t tell you that he used to damage our shoes or anything, as he was only 3 months old and it was pretty useless to explain him that it wasn’t good. For me it was much easier to keep the shoes out if his reach, especially when he used to stay home alone, but with time the problem disappeared once he turned 6 months old and his interest in shoes disappeared.
The dog is very friendly. When he was younger, he used to make friends with all the dogs around (starting from small ones and finishing with the gigantic dogs). Now he is wiser and in case of an accident, he is sure to fight for his own. There’s only one thing that really upsets me. You see, I bought the dog from a breeder and even though he has all the documents that he has titled ancestors, he still turned out to be a complete cryptorchid dog. At that very moment he was almost 6 months old.
If you don’t understand what I’m talking about - I’ll explain: the thing is that it’s a genetic disease, in other words it’s a defect which automatically brings your pedigree dog to the range of non-show anymore.
And I don’t even bother about conformation shows at all, the only thing that matters is that this defect makes your dog literally invalid and not healthy. This disease is a delayed-action mine, if it’s appropriate to say so. It means that we constantly (once a year) have to do an ultrasound to control the disease and in case of it getting worse (there’s a risk of it turning into cancer) they’ll make him emergency operation.
This is our story. This is the story how I got a defected puppy from the promised “best of the breed” which is documentally proved to be so.
So my advice to you is: if you aren’t good at good breeds, choosing a puppy, don’t listen to the breeder. Invite an independent expert. And of course, don’t forget to sign a contract!
