Happy 3rd Birthday Dakota!

As soon as the weather improved (we had 22 inches of snow on their 4th day of life!) we took the puppies outside as much as possible. Dennis threw bird feathers for them, trying to pick the best hunter among them! We had a hard time picking out our own puppy even though the rest of the nine puppies were picked/spoken for/paid for before they were 3 weeks old! We finally had it narrowed down to two pups, a female and a male. We planned to call our pup Dakota regardless of gender, so these two pups were called Dakota for awhile. The Male Dakota took to getting out of the whelping box on a regular basis (first time was at about 3 weeks! we are still amazed at how he did it!). Dennis said "now that is a smart dog!" Sheryl said "no, that's a naughty dog!" Eventually the decision was made for us. One evening we had gone out for dinner and when we returned I went to go to the basement to check on the puppies. When I opened the basement door, there was little Male Dakota sitting on the top step. He pushed by me and ran into the family room, jumped up on the ottoman and looked at me, like "Well?" When Dennis came into the family room, I was laughing so hard I was crying. Dennis said, "what's going on?" and I said "look" as I pointed to the ottoman. Dennis said "how'd he get up here?" And I told him the story. I then said to Dennis, "I think Dakota just picked us!" and he agreed. So that is the story of how Dakota came to be, and today he is 3 years old! (still acts like a puppy)

This picture is us with all ten puppies, yes they
are all there but you can't see all of them.
Here all 10 pups fit into a lundry basket, 5 days later they no longer all fit!

Dakota at 2 months
Dakota at 3 months

stay tuned for more pictures of Dakota today, plus pictures of his neices and nephews!