Scoobyboo

I'm Karen, I am 49 years old, have a partner and three grown up boys aged 17, 20 and 22 and have just become a grandmother for the first time .

I have a beautiful black lab bitch called Sweep who came to live with us when she was 4 months old, following the loss of our much loved lab/collie cross Sandy who was sadly pts last November aged 14 years.

My parents always had a lab or lab/cross in the home almost from the time I was born, so I grew up with labs and I don't remember a time in my life when there wasn't a black or a yellow lab sharing my home.

Sweep is my second black lab. I got my first black lab the moment I left home in 1980. Ben, a soft gentle male, jet black, small for a lab but big in personality. He was 8 weeks old when I got him and he lived with me for 14 years. I was heartbroken when Ben died, so two days later, my late husband saw advertised a 'free to good home' a 6 month old yellow lab/collie cross pup and so it was that Sandy came to live with us.

Sandy was the dog my boys grew up with and when he left us for the bridge last year also aged 14 we all felt a big hole in our lives. We were not sure we would get another dog after Sandy, but 2 weeks later, in November 2008 fate played a hand and brought us Sweep, a gorgeous black bitch, 16 weeks old, and full of love.

She is now just over a year old, still a big puppy, absolutely nuts, very loving and full of life. I am looking forward to sharing the next decade and more of my life with this gorgeous black lab and hopefully, as she will grow up with my grandchildren, she will instill a love of black labs in the next generation of our family .