The Golden Compass

I know everyone wants to see Ridgeback babies but today we get to see a Golden baby. My friend Tanja, who had Halo over the summer, recently got a Golden Retriever puppy. He was 3 months old - or so we think - his owners had gotten him at 8 weeks, kept him in the backyard most of the time and crated in the garage the rest of the time, decided to move and offered him for sale.

This is NOT how responsible people behave and it's certainly one of the key reasons I have a first refusal clause in my contract. I'm pretty sure his breeder (albeit a backyard breeder as he is not registered, tattooed or chipped) has no idea he is not with the family they sold him to - question is would they care? Probably not as they got their money for him ... but I digress.

Teddy is now in a wonderful home with a new name and is just now getting socialized for the first time since leaving his siblings. He does the puppy roll as introduction which is good, and he is a learning to play with other dogs. He started playing with Emmie who we'd arranged to meet and after a few false starts he was joining in the fun.

This is his introduction to the river. It's quite shallow and slow and you could walk across it if you needed to go in and rescue him. As it turns out rescue was not necessary.

Once he figured out that the water was safe and fun he had a blast and got nice and wet. I was watching him and thanking my lucky stars Ridgebacks don't like water or have long coats.

This is my favorite picture of Teddy in the water. He is obviously having a smashing time ... it makes me wonder how people can just lock dogs up in backyard and never let them see the world.

Eventually he got deep enough into the water to swim. You could tell when his toes stopped touching the bottom and he figured it out. He just seemed to want to swim for the fun of it.

He learned the hard way that he can't swim with his head under water. He came up snorting and coughing but dove right back in. What a trooper.

Out in the river swimming in circles is fun when you're a puppy and have just discovered something new that feels instinctual. It's amazing how he never panicked - swimming just came naturally.

Not like this dog. I don't think there is any need to explain what is happening here. This is Halo's first foray to the park since having the puppies ... you'd think she'd be happy but that is not the Halo way.