Welcome to the Lab-Shep Crew’s blog site.

Welcome to the Lab-Shep Crew’s blog page. Here you will read about adventures, life lessons, both human and from a dog’s point of view ( as conjured from a human’s perspective.) My intent is to be light hearted, heartfelt, adventurous, passionate, caring, empathetic in all things living, spiritual and share life’s trials and errors as my Crew and I navigate our way.

As many of you who know me, know my love, or shall I say, obsession with my dogs. From an early time I have loved dogs. I cannot ever remember a time without a dog as my best pal. As a young girl my family had Lady, a very gentle and protective to us girls, Black Lab. My father trained her to hunt, my Mother, trained her to be a beloved family pet. I have vivid memories of myself and Lady having picnics in the back yard, her helping keep my Raggedy Ann Doll safe while I played on the swing. Lady was always by my side. Sadly, one day someone took Lady. Never to be seen again, we cried many nights. Soon, I would welcome a rescue white German Shepherd, Lobo. He was given to us by some friends of my Step-dad’s, stating Lobo needed a family. I was instantly his favorite. ( at least I like to believe so) Lobo was mine from the time I was 8 years old till 18. I believe he was one years old when we got him.

Lobo and I went everywhere together. Played army, cowboys and Indians, when on hikes at the gravel pit across the street, and when I could sneak him to my room, he slept on my bed… which was more nights than my mom ever knew. As a child I told mom that if my sister was able to have her cat sleep with her, I should have my dog. Somehow, Mom didn’t really like my reasoning. Lobo was my best pal. He was our protector, wouldn’t allow anyone to harm us girls. He knew nothing but love for his family.

As a newly working pre-teen, ( I begged my mom to allow me to get a paper route), I met one of my paper route customers that had a dog who was going to have puppies. They offered to let me have pick of the litter. After finally talking my mother into allowing another dog, I was able to bring “Princess” home. She was a Wired Haired German Pointer. Not exactly “pretty”, or princess pretty, but she was my Princess. She and Lobo got along wonderfully. They were constant companions. I would take them on my paper route, bike riding, hiking, and when we had horses if my mom would allow, they went too. I now had two dogs to sneak into my upstairs room each night. And I did ! 🙂

With the above as a glimpse of the fact that I am a dog person, have always had a canine companion and probably always will. These guys are my family, my kids, my crazy housemates. That said, I work each day to make our lives easier. I have learned many training aspects of having dogs as I have grown. Still a ton more to learn as the learning never stops. Thanks to my many friends and acquaintances I have met along my way, I have embedded more information on dog care, training, pack management, insights to behavior and problems to most certainly publish and entire novel with sequels. Yet, I know, we all have chapters we could share that are probably very similar. So I won’t bore you with that, for now !

The Lab-Shep Crew is my current pack, Shuksan, Mi Hijo and Cali. 12, 2, and 1 respectively. The two Labs are males and the German Shepherd is female. Oh… and I, or WE, also have a Cat, the Fat Cat as I refer to her mostly. She was my Mother’s cat, and when my Mother was about to succumb to her cancer, she had asked me to take care of her baby, Precious, The Fat Cat ( she was 23lbs when I got her) We all cohabit peacefully and respectfully.

As you all follow, I hope you enjoy what becomes of this blog and can laugh a little, think of things from another’s perspective