Silky/Stefano swap

Silky was a bit "reluctant" to have our CFR play and handle her during her evaluation. It made me realize it would be good for Silky to participate in more frequent puppy swaps and puppy sitting adventures. That way, she could become accustomed to being handled by a variety of people and would be less likely to become stressed when our CFR takes her reins in her next eval. . . . or so the theory goes . . .

So I sent an email to Silky's brother's family and asked if they would like to swap puppies for a few days. They said yes, we worked out all the details, and voila! Stefano came to stay.

What a guy! He's Silky's brother. Their litter had 5 yellow labs and 3 black labs. One of their littermates, Spencer, was donated to the Samsung Guide Dog School in Korea. Stefano settled right in and made himself at home on the tie-down next to our kitchen. We went out for a relieve and walk -- he was totally distracted by a small dog (just like Silky would've been) and walked right next to me once we were away from the small dog's influence. Back at home, he crashed.

Stefano is quite a bit larger than Silky is -- he weighs 70+ pounds and she's about 55 these days.The most surprising thing for me was to see they have identical expressions. Silky has a way of looking right into our eyes and Stefano does the same. And his face looks just like Silky's -- only larger and blonde.