She is a little 9 week old lab puppy. We have named her Halibut or Hali for short.
I made a quick trip to Eastern Idaho with my parents to pick up the puppy. After flying out of Alaska to Idaho, I found the drive to be a bit long. A five hour drive to Eastern Idaho near the Wyoming border.
Hali was not very impressed and made my dad's ride back home a bit unsettled. She wriggled, climbed, howled, and chewed on dad for nearly the full five hours. Dad's comment was, "This puppy sure has a strong main spring".
I have watched the breeder's web sight for over a year trying to time a litter of puppies for the small window of time I have between my summer guiding and my winter diving.
"We have a litter of chocolate puppies just born last night," the breeder told me when I contacted him. "I'll keep first pick of litter for myself but give you next in line," he informed me. I quickly sent him a deposit and the matter was settled.
Now the work has begun. House training a new high energy puppy. I am sure it thinks its name is "NO!"
This puppy is very high strung. We asked the breeder to make sure our puppy would make a great house dog, friend, as well as a good companion for our two other dogs.
She does not want to be held at all, sleeps by herself across the room from my wife or I, and the other two dogs.
She walked into the house and immediately dominated our 12 year old lab, Jaz. She tried to take on the boxer, Mav but we were encouraging him to stand his ground. This cute little puppy ran both of the old dogs up onto the couch for the first day.
I took little Hali out for her evening potty time to find the neighbor's two dominate poodles racing at us barking like they always do. In just a minute this cute little lab puppy had them both pinned under my truck cowering in fear. Their owner came to their rescue, but we both shook our heads at the nice little, supposed to be mild 8 week old lab dominating these two seasoned dogs. Hmm.... makes me wonder what we signed up for.
We texted the breeder kind of jabbing that he pawned off the alpha female onto us and he claimed he had two other females in the litter who were the alpha dogs.
"At least you won't have to worry about some other dog taking a duck out of her mouth when she is old enough to hunt," my wife consoled me. I gave her a quirky little smile, thinking of all the bloody battles I might have to break up if another dog even gets close to us.
The names I quickly though of for the new puppy... Tasmanian Devil, Killer, Satan. Then Shark, Killer Whale, or Snapping Turtle... just to name a few.
My wife and daughter came with a little more reason and her name was to be Sweet Pea, Mild Jill, or some such.. Ha! Nice try.
After three days we settled on Halibut. We wanted something with a good Alaska slant to it. Seeing this little puppy flop around on the floor sure looks like a halibut flopping around on deck.
Hali is a very smart little dog. She learned to sit in less than an hour, lay down in about the same amount of time. In two days she has not touched most of the household items we have told her "No" to. I am amazed at how quickly she learns.
Hali has settled in with our other two dogs as well. She and Mav wrestle for hours each day, and he will let her know when she is getting too bossy. It is nice having a dog do the correcting instead of us. We go for long walks and she is doing very good. she has no fear and we have to watch that she doesn't jump off cliffs or into deep water. Her brown coat blends with the forest floor and makes spotting her nearly impossible so we have to keep continual eyes on her. She does not seem to mind taking off by herself and expects us to come find her.
I can tell this will be a very independent dog. She is going to be strong willed, but I can already tell this will probably be my best hunting dog of my life so far.
If I can learn to train her, she will be incredibly. Jaz has been so good and so easy to train. Hali will be hard to train, but should become the best dog ever.
So.... wish me luck. Here we go on a 12 year roller coaster ride of dog training.
"by the way dear..." I'm looking at my wife, "where is that add for the shock collar?"
Halibut "Hali"
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