A little all about Grouper: He loves to swim / be on the boat / etc and acts like a crazy man running in circles when he is anywhere close to water. He only likes to fetch the orange chuck-it balls, tennis balls he ignores. He can eat all day if you let him. He has a tendancy to sit exactly in the middle of our tiny kitchen while we cook which requires us to straddle him. He likes baths in the tub and is scared of the hose (I blame that on the fact that he was never washed with a hose as a pup since we didnt' have one). He has a lab stuffed animal he is in love with, tossing it in the air and sleeping with - it is the o-n-l-y stuffed toy he hasn't destroyed. He sounds like chubaca sometimes and whines for attention (my fault probably). He loves paper products (i.e. cardboard toilet rolls) and likes to sneak into the trash at night which I think he plans out. He doesn't like girls age 6 through 10 and runs away from them - I don't think he likes the shrieks and high pitched voices of little girls which is probably due to the fact that he wasn't exposed to little girls and only little boys as a pup (our nephew). And, like any lab, he sheds like crazy leaving hair fluffs everywhere.
How we found our Breeder - I grew up with Labs (Belle a Black Lab and Brooke a Yellow Lab/Husky mix). Once we moved into our place I wanted a dog badly. We were hanging out with one of Hubs' friends with two English Labs. I had never heard of an English Lab, but supposedly they were 'lazier' than an American Lab which has tons of energy. Sounded great for two people who work long day and live in a tiny place. So I researched places and found Piney Creek Labs which offered pure bred labs with half AKA registration at a reasonable price (yes, it was all about getting a quality pup at a reasonable price). They had a recent litter so I called up. They had 2 yellow males left and 1 black female. I left it up to Hubs since he never had a dog - at first he wanted the black female, then decided he wanted a yellow male. So I told her we wanted to 'just look' at the yellow males. She said there was a couple in front of us so they had first pick. We drove down there to 'just look' at the yellow male and of course fell in love.
How Grouper got his name - On our way down to 'just look' at him we discussed names. Hubs wanted to name him after a boat manufacturer. We started naming all of them but didn't like any for a dog's name. Then I said what about a type of fish. We named fish - like bass, trout, etc but couldn't pick one. On our way home with our new pup we kept thinking of fish. I think it was Hubs that said "Grouper" ... we pondered a moment and said "that fits him, he has a big belly" which Grouper the fish have. And that was it!
