Boris the Borador

At the end of last year we made the decision to get a dog.  Both boys just love animals and I suppose we could have just got them a couple of hamsters or guineapigs but in the end went the whole hog and got a dog.

We scoured the internet looking for the most suitable breeds for a young family with the usual suspects topping the list, labradors and golden retrievers.  I like both breeds and they were definitely on the shopping list.  Then in the December holidays I met Ian and Helen Cumming’s dog Benji, he’s a labrador border collie cross.  I thought he would be perfect because he’s a lovely energetic dog with a very sweet nature.

So when we got home I did a Google search for the lab collie cross and found out that it is called a “borador”. There was a dated advert for borador puppies in the web classifieds from September last year.  I called the breeder to find out more about the breed not expecting him to have any left.  This was probably the first week of January and as it turned out his bitch had given birth to a new litter on the 31st of December.  He was only planning on placing another advert when they were 6 weeks old so as luck would have it I was first in line.  I use the term breeder loosly here as he is not strickly speaking a borador breeder.  He was also quite keen to get rid of the puppies smartly so he priced them to go at R250 each.

That was 7 weeks ago and on Saturday I collected Boris the borador from Chris in Kraaifontein.  I visited the pups when they were 6 weeks old to choose our doggie early.  He is one of two chocolate coloured puppies in a litter of 10.  I asked Chris to keep him for another 2 weeks so he could learn as much as possible from his mom and the other puppies in the litter.  Apparently if they leave too early they don’t learn important social lessons like “bite inhibition”.  It seems to have paid off because Boris is a well adjusted sweet little pup willing to please.

It hasn’t taken us long to all fall in love with the little guy.  On the first day he was a bit shy and a little out of sorts but settled right down after that.  He is still getting a feel for things but knows he’s firmly at the bottom of his new pack.  He’s tried to herd Dylan like a sheep a few times but Dylan just swats him away and says “NO DOGGIE”, one thing is for sure Dylan is no sheep.  For what ever reason Dylan calls him Heinz every now and then.

So far we are all sleeping through with no crying at night and he is well on his way to being house trained.  He poops more than he eats though which is confounding.  Anyway we look forward to many happy years with Boris a welcome addition to the family.