Instincts

On our way home from our honeymoon, my wife and I decided that in order for us to have complete happiness we must purchase a dog. So about midway home we stopped and picked up a newspaper just to temp ourselves with the possibility of a puppy. I had already thought long and hard and studied up on what I wanted. I new that I wanted a Black lab and it had to conform to high standards. It had to have champion blood lines, not just show lines but field trial champion lines. In fact, I had been thinking about what I wanted for about 4 years. I knew what I wanted and I knew that I would know immediately if I had the right dog or not. As we searched the newspaper we found a number of lab puppies for sale, but the only one that jumped out at me was the one that said "Black lab puppies excellent champion blood lines." That was the one for me. So we called the person in the ad. Drove to his house to look at the dogs. At first sight of the black lab puppies My wife was sold. It took her about 15 seconds to say: "lets get one now". I on the other hand needed to ask a few questions and look at the pedigrees, I mean this was to be my hunting buddy for the next 15 years I had to be careful. After looking at the pedigrees I realized what a find we had found. The lines had National field champion after champion. I was impressed and I was sold. It wasn't long before I was handing over the last of my "single life money" to purchase Angus. Labrador Retrievers were bread specifically to retrieve items. Originally out of Newfoundland they were used to retrieve fish and nets for fishermen, but as time went on they were used to retrieve game for hunters. The natural instinct to retrieve was bred deep into the blood of the Lab. The reason that I was so set on Champion field lines was because the instinct to please their master and strict obedience was proven and developed throughout the genes of the specific dog. This was proven to me with my own dog when my wife and I stopped at the first gas station on our way home with our dog. I got out with my 8 week old pup to let him stretch out a little. As I let him out of the car he would not leave my side. He just followed obediently. I thought I would play with him a little so I grabbed a pencil, let him look at it and threw it. As soon as the pencil hit the ground, Angus bounded clumsily after the pencil, picked it up and brought it back to my hand. It that pure retrieving instinct. As time went on I worked with the dog and trained him, but I found that when hunting he trained himself. In fact when the time to hunt came he performed almost flawlessly, (except for the times that I took people hunting with me that I had spent many hours bragging him up.) I am not a professional trainer, a bad trainer at that but because of the instincts of the dog, he became a good hunter. The move to Wyoming helped because he gets a lot more practice.

I titled this blog instincts because last night I noticed another instinct and that is my Wife's instinct as a mother. It amazes me to see how good she is with our little boy. It's kind of like a sixth sense. I could sleep all night and not even hear the boy and she will have been up three or four times all ready. She will wake up out of a dead sleep because she has noticed the baby's breathing is not normal and find that the baby has pulled his blanket over his head. There is all kinds of little stuff like that. It impresses the crap out of me.

When we picked each other out, it was kind of like the dog shopping but opposite. When I met her at the sporting goods store it took me about 15 seconds to say "lets get one now" Cindy was a little more careful and wanted to check out everything. I am constantly amazed at how good of a wife and mother she is. I either got lucky (or am one heck of a salesman) because I couldn't think of another person in the world that would make me as happy as I am (or think of another person patient enough to deal with me). I couldn't think of a better mother for my little boy. I know that I would have messed up that parenting thing a long time ago if she wasn't there. (Hence feeding the 4 month old honey and Diet Dew) I like it shouldn't he?