Jefferson Turns One!

Meet Jefferson! This sweet boy turned just turned ONE! He was the addition to our family that we never expected to have and now we are so grateful for him. Last year our yellow lab, Baxter, had to be put down after his cancer had spread to both of his lungs. I’ll spare you the whole story because it really is quite heartbreaking. However, after Baxter was no longer with us, friends reached out to me sharing that their Lab or Golden had suffered the same fate. It sparked my curiosity and then discovered that Labrador Retrievers and Golden Retrievers have had an astronomical surge in cancer rates. I couldn’t find any definitive answers as to why that was the case except that I kept reading how they were two of the most popular family dogs in the US and that they may be overbred. Maybe I’ll research this a little farther and have a dedicated post to that issue later.

Anyway, I had not planned on getting another dog anytime soon because Baxter’s loss had hit me hard. I’m a stay-at-home mom and during the day, Bax had been my shadow. The house seemed so empty with the kids at school and Bax not at my side. My daughter kept insisting that she wanted another dog and I resisted. Then we met this guy. Love at first sight.

It’s funny with Labs, everyone talks about what great family dogs they are and how wonderful they are… but no one talks about what they are like as puppies! They are a very close runner-up to adding a baby to your home. But, this time we knew what we were getting into and as soon as those four little paws touched down in our home, we began training him. We had not been as vigilant with Baxter, and that coupled with his high-strung personality, he was pretty hard to deal with sometimes. With Jefferson, I don’t know if it is his sweet disposition or that we started training him so young (or maybe both), but he helped to fill the hole in our hearts and is such an enormous part of our family.