Vox Hunt: Because everyone loves baby animals.

Show us a baby animal.

Hugo: Day 1

I could just as easily show you a picture of Hugo now, because, even though he's only two, he acts like a big honkin' puppy.

I'm sure Hugo was small at some point.  Simple Biology tells me this.  We just never knew him in a compact form.  When the husband and I decided that we wanted to get a dog, orrrrrrrrr when I finally wore the husband down until he caved and let me get a dog, I had only one condition to follow: it must be a puppy.  You know, for the bonding that goes on between owner and puppy.  :::eyeroll::: Hub was sure that he would only bond with the dog if it was cute.  Nevermind the headache and hassle of having a baby animal around the house.  I guess we just had to live it.

One thing I did know about labs is the two classes of energy.  Didn't know this?  Yeah, it was a learning experience for me too, at one point.  Look around.  Labs are probably the most common dog around still, and you can break them down into two groups: the English style, which is thicker, tankier, and lower energy, and the long-and-lean style, which is a lot more prevalent in the states and can be denoted by well, leaner labs with a lot more energy.  Now, don't get me wrong here, labs are working dogs.  English or long-and-lean, it doesn't matter, they can still go for 3-mile runs and still be game for a good round of fetch in the backyard.  Oh, I really - and I mean really - had wanted to get an adult dog from a rescue.  But, given that I wanted a lab, and given that I was barely getting my husband to go along with it, I needed genetics working for me at that point.  I was a desperate woman.

Biggest Puppy Ever

So I called around to breeders.  It didn't take long until I found a wonderful woman, whose entire life is devoted to her labs, down near Austin.  She told me she had a three-month-old chocolate male pup, who had a wonderful middle-of-the-road temperment, but unfortunately also had an overbite.  Normally she didn't sell dogs to people not interested in showing, but here she was with a dog she couldn't show and couldn't breed.  Hmmmmm.  She offered to bring him up for a dog show near us that some of her other dogs were in.  The hub and I drove out to the show, and the breeder showed us to her van (or small bus?) where our Hugo was hanging out.  We were immediately shocked.

33 lbs Hugo was, when we first saw him.  Instead of this cute handful we were expecting, Hugo looked like the puppy that ate the other puppies.  We (or, I) fell for him right away, and the rest is history.  I suppose it bears mentioning that, while it was definitely a slow-to-warm up situation, Hub is completely head over heels for this dog now.  If you've ever met a dog like him, I'm sure you understand.