“Why did you pay all that money for your dog?” friends would say. “She looks just like any other Labrador”.
“Oh, no, no, no.” I replied “Those dogs you’re talking about—they’re not labradors, they're ladradors”.
The difference did not rely only on my puppy’s genealogy and her according-to-the-standard straight, thick tail. It also had to do with my expectations about my dog’s temperament: I’d seen too many uncontrollable ladradors doing things Labradors are not supposed to, and that was not the kind of pet I had in mind.
You see, before I found my puppy, I did some research. I learned that the best age for a puppy to leave his mother and its pack is four months old. This is why: When a puppy is removed from the pack at a very young age (a couple of weeks, maybe a month or two), it does not get the opportunity of learning the differnce between a correct and an incorrect behavior is. People who adopt these very young pups try to correct their pet’s behavior with training, but it’s just too late: pups need to learn this from their brothers and sisters.
How do they learn what’s correct and what’s not? Think about what pups do all day: sleep, eat, and play. In these three parts of their day, puppies are forced to interact with each other. Who forces them? Mother nature.
Let’s picture two puppies playing. They will probably jump at each other, push, and even bite a little. When a puppy is bitten a bit too hard, it squeaks. It’s a message that says: “Hey, stop! That hurts!”. And there’s more. Remember: they’re a pack. When one of them is hurting the other members of the pack continuously, it receives a severe punishment: isolation. Pups don’t want to play with a guy who’s hurting them, so what do they do? Not play with him! Question: What do you think the isolated pup will do to re-gain pack membership?
When pups get to a new home without getting through pack interaction, guess who they’ll bite (without really knowing they’re doing something wrong)? The smallest kid in the family. These are the kind of pets that get kicked out of the house and taken to the finca where they spend the rest of their days tied on a rope.
I didn’t pay all that extra money only for my dog’s good looks, although I have to accept: my dog is too beautiful. That extra money also paid for that four valuable months she spent with Pelé, Mandela, Venus, Melchor and Luther (they all got names after famous black people in history. Baghi’s original name was Whoopi).
Finally, I’ll share with you one of the nicest memories I have of my dog’s early childhood. After Baghi left her pack, we visited the pack and breeders every Saturday. The first thing she would do when she jumped off the car was run at her maximum capacity across the garden until she crashed into the fence that enclosed the rest of the pack. They would all greet Baghi, happily whining, moving their tails rapidly and pressing their black paws against the fence. It looked as though this was their style of going: “High-five!, High-five!, High-five!” Melchor was the chubby guy, so he bumped in last. I can imagine him saying: “Hey sis, are you still on Pro-Plan®
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