A Chocolate Lab Summer – Part One (Callie and Moe)

I suppose everyone has a list of things they wanted to once in their life. I am not talking about a “bucket list” just some different adventures you find appealing. I cannot say I ever had the experience of breeding puppies on mine, but lo and behold, that was exactly what happened the summer of 2007. With a female chocolate lab in our corner, we sought another full bred boy Labrador to use to mate with our Callie.

Our chocolate Lab girl, Callie

The list of potential suitors was not particularly long. Actually there was only two choices that really garnered serious consideration. One was Emmit, a seven-year old full blooded cream-colored Labrador that belonged to my aunt and uncle. Bur poor Emmit was too far along in his bachelorhood to have any interest in three-year old Callie.

Interestingly, the boy labrador we settled on lived next door to Emmit, with friends of ours from church. Moe was a largish chocolate lab that was certainly more eager to be part of this arrangement than his elder neighbor. Knowing that Moe was full-blooded suited our purpose of being able to register the puppies with the American Kennel Club and the wish to guarantee the likelihood of a high number of chocolate lab puppies.

Moe in his fenced yard

So that I keep this a family friendly blog let’s just say that nature took its course and we began to count the days until we had puppies. We began to notice signs with Callie that everything was fine and paid special attention to make sure she was fed and watered properly to make sure she had no issues.

We had a typically warm Virginia summer, so the water was certainly important to monitor. Our kids were twelve and nine that summer, just the right age to be excited about the coming additions to our family. They told everyone they knew I think, including some people who had no idea who Callie was about the coming puppies.

I am happy to report we saw no complications in our run up to the 63rd day, which by our calendar was when we would see signs of the puppies. The excitement was palpable as the first of our pups entered the world. I will continue this story in the next post of the series, A Chocolate Lab Summer – The Puppies Are Coming! The Puppies Are Coming!,  where I will include many more pictures of our large litter. I hope you will come back to follow this adventure.