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We have had our new yellow lab puppy, Jawea (named after Sacajawea) for two weeks now and she is just about three months old. I have never been a dog person but decided to get a lab for protection and to keep me from getting so lonely when my two little boys go to their dad’s house every other weekend. Jawea and I fell madly in love with each other at the airport. She put her little cheek against mine and tipped her face up into the California sunshine, closed her eyes and just held her face still, as if she could feel we were bonding to each other. But the most amazing thing happened tonight. After she and I took a great nap together then enjoyed a quiet afternoon, (yes, quiet, she has got to be the most mellow puppy on the planet) she did something that truly astonished me. She had already been introduced to our two white cockatiels, who both have a bad habit of jumping down onto the ground from their cage and walking around. (Their wings are clipped so it is especially dangerous since they can’t fly away.) I had been teaching Jawea not to lunge at them and grab them in her mouth, which being a Labrador is her natural instinct from centuries of breeding these dogs to birds shot down by hunters and Tonight she was put to the test. I was downstairs and for some reason she had gone upstairs. (She is almost always glued to my side.) I heard her barking this high pitched, unusual bark that I’d never heard from her before. I ran up the stairs and there she sat, at the top of the stairs, looking down on one of the cockatiels who had escaped and was sitting three stairs down from her. Instead of doing what must have been her overwhelming instinct, to lunge and grab the bird in her mouth, she just sat there, calling me, letting me know something was amiss. I am absolutely AMAZED that at 3 months old and with only a week’s occasional, unprofessional training, this puppy chose to obey me over following her natural urges. This is just one example of why I can confidently say you delivered me the best dog ever! Thank you so much! We just adore her!! In fact, she is curled up on my silky soft pillow as I type. Elisa Christensen