The plan of this project

I'm beginning this blog as my wife and I begin our life with a new member of the family.  Our young black lab.  After a lot of thought and consideration we've decided that the time is right for a dog.

We were recently married in May and I've had several dogs in the past, but this will be the first pet of any kind for my wife.  I've wanted a dog for some time, but with the costs and the time I was spending with school it just wasn't possible.

Even now it won't be easy as both of our jobs are demanding in terms of the times we work and the hours we're working, but we're going to do our best and provide the care and time our young pup will need.

I knew I wanted a dog for the field and after consideration of the English Springer Spaniel and a German Shorthair (which I had in the past) and with the input from my wife we decided on a Lab.  I'm doing more waterfowl hunting and the versatility and demeanor of the lab and the ability of the dog to be a running partner for my wife were a combination that couldn't be beat.

The process of looking for the right dog and looking for the right time to get a dog started almost 1 1/2 years ago, long enough that I decided on a training program before a dog, which will be the FowlDawgs training series.

After that decision was made I looked into the idea of a started lab (and even started pointing lab) due to the fact that I've never trained a lab and my wife's never had a dog.  However, the thought and challenge of successfully raising and training a lab from 8 weeks on is something we're prepared to tackle.

In looking for the right breeder price was obviously a factor, but more specifically the parents, their abilities, and what they are able to do were our main considerations.  I was happy to find Lamborn's Labradors (http://www.lambornslabradors.webs.com/), which was somewhat close to us in southern NJ and provided us with a match for a litter with (hopefully) the characteristics we are looking for.

The puppies were born 11/13/10 to Ruger and Sky (who I'll include pictures of on my next post).

We chose to get a black puppy out of this black/yellow mix litter and have 2nd choice for a female.  We weren't set on a specific sex, rather the color black ,which my wife insisted on.

I'll be shooting some pictures and video of the puppies and will be able to include those in the next few days as well.

Here's to hoping this experience goes well.  I'm 100% sure it'll be a lot of work, but I'm also 100% sure its going to be worth all the effort.

-JJD