Puzzle Update

Hi Kristen,I’ve been meaning to write you forever to give you an update on Puzzle. First of all ,here’s a picture of her at 7 months—check it out: she’s a blonde! Now wherever I go people say my dog looks like me....I think she’s settled on a color now, but I’m not sure. Do you know if any of her siblings got lighter? We love her so much. She is truly a sweet, funny, fun little dog. At this point she’s about 30 lbs and I’d say 20”--Ilooks like she’ll be right in the range you said she’d be. With such great temperament—loving, friendly, smart, silly. She picks up on training super quickly. Her recall is particularly good (most of the time).We (mostly I) really focused on her early training. That was, along with providing regular daily exercise, absolutely crucial for new puppy families. Like I said, she catches on quick—I could probably count the number of potty training accidents she had on one hand (and most of them were next to the door, like she KNEW where she was supposed to go but didn’t make it). She slept through the night within a matter of a few days. But her natural enthusiasm does mean a tendency towards jumping, chasing joggers on the trail and other kind of excitable stuff. I took both puppy 1 and puppy 2 classes with her and we may continue because it’s been fun. But doing the classes REALLY made a difference. Now, people who come up to us comment on what calm puppy she is (though believe me, she has her moments). And LOTS of people come up to us. People actually pull over in their cars to ask where we got her (we give them your name). Her coat is GORGEOUS. High maintenance for sure—we walk her nearly every day off-leash on the trails around her and she is a burr magnet—but that’s okay. I enjoy grooming her and once she got the hang of it, she enjoys it too—she actually doesn’t like to have burrs or twigs in her coat and will pull them out herself when she can. But I tell people if they’re going to get this kidn of dog with this kind of coat that is the trade-off for no shedding and allergy-friendliness. Totally worth it, I think.It’s really her personality that we love, though. She has become an absolute part of the family (certain rules about being on the furniture beginning to fall by the wayside....). We take her everywhere we can; Steven even brings her to the office when I’m out of town. She’s happy wherever she is, as long as she’s with us. As you predicted, she’s a TOTAL people dog (though she also LOVES to play with other dogs). She would rather be in the house flopped on our feet any day than be outside running around the yard without us. She has NEVER chewed up a single thing in the house—she even leaves Daisy’s stuffed animals alone (we had to tell her “leave it” a few times, but since then she has never even tried to grab one) . you can stick your hand in her food bowl, climb into her crate, take her favorite bone away and she could care less. And, of course, she’s trustworthy with kids. You can pull her across the room by her tail (not that I do...) and she’ll just look at you dolefully. Just a great, great family pet. Anyway, I just wanted you to know how happy we are with Puzzle—with our choice of puppy and of breeder!Warmly,Peggy O.