Who needs a yard guy, when you've got......

As many of you know, John & I got a sweet little black lab, Cooper, on the 4th of July this year. Cooper was already part of the family before we took him home. You see, Cooper's dad, Charlie, is John's 1st lab. Charlie is a sweet yellow lab that has since been adopted by John's mom, Sherry. She was to take care of him when John went off to college for just a year or so, and there have been no signs of seperating them since. They got everywhere together like Bonnie & Clyde!

Cooper the day we got him at 6 weeks old!

Cooper at 8 weeks old

Cooper at 11 weeks old. He LOVES his duck. Duck is like his little stuffed animal/ security blanket. He sleeps with duck every night & often will go find duck to bring him up on the couch or near him when he naps. It is hilarious!

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Well, Cooper is really growing! We can't believe how fast he has grown in just a short amount of time. He loves to sleep and loves to fetch. John has really been working with him on retrieving. (It's a rule in our house that all dogs that do or will ever reside here will all be hunting dogs. Can you take one guess as to who made that rule??)- Cooper will retrieve just about anything that we tell him to retrieve. He is getting very good at blind retrieves. (Where he doesn't see where the duck or stick fell, but will go out in our yard & look back at John & I as to where we point to where he should "hunt it up"- ). I definitely feel like a little Mom, because he is ahead of his "Water Dog Training Manual". Ha Ha- kinda like "Yay!, he has scored high on high ACT's!" , which John explains that this blind retrieve is just as, if not more important, as ACTs.... (Whatever.....)

Cooper today- 16 weeks old

Since he's so great at retriving, there is one thing that I wasn't prepared for..... sticks.

Oh the sticks! I feel like one of the little piggies over here, because I could seriously build a house out of sticks with all the ones that Cooper brings in. Yep, he brings them IN the house! Cooper has a little doggie door in our basement that leads out onto our deck. Since our backyard is fenced in, he is allowed to come & go as he pleases. Well, he goes, but when he comes back in, it is usually with a stick! He runs in the house like he's should have his picture taken because he is the best dog alive & just retrieved the largest stick he can find. It's pretty comical.



But what's so comical about it all, is he tries to find the biggest sticks he can find & tries to fit them through his doggie door. I will be upstairs doing something around the house & hear such a racket going on downstairs. 99% of the time, it is Cooper with a rather large stick. He's either trying to bring it in through his doggie door, or somehow has gotten it all through the doggie door & running around downstairs as the stick is banging up against the tables, walls, chairs, etc. Yep, like the stick in the picture above..... right after this picture was taken, I went back inside & this stick was attempted to fit through the door.

And his sticks turn into chew toys, which turn into a big mess! At least he only likes to carry his sticks into one certain room in the house & play with them there.

Who needs a yard guy when we've got Cooper picking up all the sticks in the yard for us??

Now, about that mess.............