Newest member of our family

Life has been a bit crazy here at the Archibald household! We have been in the process of doing some remodeling, and home improvement. Along with the everyday busy

summer activities!

About two weeks ago we decided to welcome a new member to our family. We have been doing a lot of research on larger breed dogs. We have had an English Mastiff in the past and even though she was super sweet she was very skittish, timid, and way to big to have in town!

We have been contemplating adding a bigger dog to our family for about six months. The kids have been wanting a dog to play fetch with and run around the yard with. I have always been wanting one mainly for the peace of mind when I am home alone with the kiddos, just knowing there is a big dog "guarding" us makes me feel better. :)

We did a lot of research and really liked both Rhodesian Ridgebacks and Anatolian Shepard's. Both seemed to be great dogs both breeds had aspects we were looking for in a dog. The down falls for the ridgeback was the price, we could not find one without health issues for under $900! That was a little more then we were willing to spend at this time. The down fall for us with the Anatolian was the shedding, it is a longer haired dog and research on the breed said that they needed brushed out twice a week in order to keep shedding to a minimal. Beings that it would mainly be an inside dog this presented a bit of a problem for me, since I do not enjoy cleaning up animal hair from around the house. (already have enough with Dash, our cat!)

So with this all being said we decided to once again broaden our search, we did searches on the "smartest" and "best family" dogs and the lab landed in the top ten of both of those searches. We looked on craigslist and found a guy who had two nine week old labs for sale. We decided to go check them out. Needless to say we were sold as soon as we saw our little guy. He was so cute and sweet and we all instantly feel in love with him!

We named our new little guy Brody and he has been an amazing puppy! He plays fetch with the kids, runs around the yard after them, and loves to snuggle. He learned to sit on command the first day home and learned to shake the second day. He has done awesome on our walks and is a very well behaved little guy. We could not be more happy with our decision. He is a wonderful addition to our family and we are so thankful we have the privilege of being his "humans"! ;)

He is also doing a great job with the chickens and we are working on training his to "heard" them to their pen at night.