Pizza Black Labrador Retriever Female 8 Years Old ID #2831

Pizza left the farm to join Brookline.  She is an 8 yr old, gorgeous, black 137 pounder blockhead type.  She was great in the car and good at the vet even though she is quite apprehensive of strangers at first, but warms up with time. Pizza loves to play fetch and knows lots of commands and tricks according to the farmer who had her since she was a puppy. Please read her blog from the bottom up.

February 11, 2021

The snow is falling and it’s a good morning to cozy up inside and snooze. Oh wait. I just described every morning for Pizza! She isn’t a morning person. She will roll over to have her belly rubbed but that’s about all the activity she’s participating in before 10am. Since she’s taken to sleeping on a sofa in the family room, she does have to tolerate us being awake and she will groan a bit about the disruption to her beauty sleep.
An update on Pizza, she had a few days of throwing up. She went to the vet and it was determined that we should wait and see how she is in two weeks. She is better now but the vet just wants up to do a weight check as an added precaution. So she’s just hanging out a little longer with our family, living her best life.

She loves the snow. She’s been having the best time playing with my kids and Monson, our puppy. She’s been playing hard and resting well. We love having her here with us. She is the sweetest girl we know and keeps us laughing every day.
If all goes well, Pizza will be available next week and we will be very sad to say goodbye to this charmer!

January 25, 2021

Pizza has completed her water therapy. He was quite pleased with the strength she gained on both sides. He is hoping that she will maintain the growth without water therapy. Not knowing her previous life, I don’t know how active she was. With us, she’s quite active! Although not a morning person! She usually sleeps until 10:00 in the morning. Then she starts the day with gusto.

My youngest daughter takes her for a walk around the block every afternoon before the sun goes down. She loves her walks and gets very excited when she sees the leash.

This past weekend she learned to play hide and seek with my daughters and resident dog, Monson. The girls usually throw a treat to gain time, charge into another room and hide behind the drapes or furniture. Monson and Pizza run to find them. It’s quite amusing to watch and hear the giggles.

The kids usually let Pizza out the back door if I’ve gone somewhere because she loves to run to the fence to greet me (our garage is behind the house). She runs to the fence, dances, and barks, all in excitement for my return. I can’t ever seem to get in the gate fast enough! Then she charges up to the house so she can bring a toy or tennis ball to show me.

Pizza is very happy to sleep on any of the dog beds, as I mentioned previously, I took her crate down. Once she gained comfort with us, she wouldn’t go inside it. Sort of confused, she’d just lie in front of it. So I put it away.  Now she’s completely adjusted to any dog bed. And happy to just roam and sleep when she wants to. With this free roam means she follows us up to bed. She’s not a sofa dog but she has declared herself to be a bed dog. She doesn’t care who she sleeps with but it must be a full, queen or king size bed. For her size, she’s actually quite easy to sleep with. She curls up and very happy to be with any one of us. In the morning, she will not follow us downstairs. She continues her beauty sleep, in bed, alone until she’s ready to come down. But then gets on a dog bed and finishes her sleep.

She LOVES the sound of the bread package. One of our resident dogs has to have medicine before bed so every night, she comes running to the island when I open the bread drawer. She’s learned this sound so any time someone moves the bread package, she comes running. She can be a little demanding if I don’t give her just a tiny sympathy piece of bread when Moose is having his meds.

Two months with us and she has learned some very naughty, typical Labrador habits. You’d never know Pizza was a mill dog. She’s completely found her place in our family and we’re so excited for her to find her forever family. I will be posting her later this week. She is going to make one family very, very happy!

January 14, 2021

While Pizza Pie is off doing her water therapy I thought I would send a little update.

She is so much fun in our family. She’s goofy, loving, loyal and basically throws individual parties for each of us. She does this front paw dance with excitement. Every time she starts the day or after she’s had a nap. Last night my husband came home from two weeks in NH. I was in bed but I could hear her two paw dance!!

We did have a service person in the house yesterday. She was not comforting with a stranger being in the house and barked at him. I asked her if she’d feel more comfortable outside and that’s what we did. So even though she shows very little signs of being a recovering farm dog, there is still fear of strangers.

I am also happy to report that Pizza is a first prize beggar at the dinner table, while I’m cooking and while I’m preparing dog plates of surprises. Last night she discovered that turkey is very, very good.

At the table begging (that’s my arm)
Is it ready??? I’m ready. Is it ready???

Is it ready?!?

Clean plate!

January 10, 2021

Pizza has been with us since just after thanksgiving. When she arrived, she was fearfully cautious. Since then she has not only learned to trust all of us, she has learned to love each of us, equally. She is genuinely excited and dances with her front paws for each of us.

“Pizza Pie” is a joy to have around. She is just happy, funny and entertaining. She is your typical, food loving Labrador. She’s very helpful when I’m cooking and she is very happy to rest her head on the table as we eat. She will dance for food.

Pizza has been working hard through the holidays to drop some extra pounds. I’m happy to report that she is now 125 pounds. She has lost 12 of her 137 pounds! We have her on a regular feeding schedule and while we do indulge her with treats, she has worked really hard to gain a waist!

When Pizza arrived, her crate AKA “Pizza’s Hut” was her safe space. She spent a lot of time there and would run back to her hut when scared or spooked. She was very happy there and collected every single dog toy and some random treasures in her hut. She buried them and slept on them. Over the last few days, she has been staying by my side. Now, she is happiest on a dog bed like the other dogs. She went two full days without going into her hut so today I took it down. She can be found near her people or happily sleeping on a dog bed. So much improvement for this farm girl.

Pizza Pizza is doing water therapy 2X a week. She is doing very well and shows no signs of discomfort from her exercise. The last time I brought her, she was so excited that she cried until It was her turn to go inside. When I picked her up they told me she was too excited and wiggly to be toweled off. So I brought home 125 pounds of soaking, dripping Labrador. Pizza loves the car!

We love this girl so much. She has many nick names and answers to all of them. We love having her in our family and we know she is going to be a great joy to the family that adopts her.

December 4, 2020

I lied. I guess. I said first order of business would be to change her name from Pizza to anything else. But then she came. And she knows her name. And it’s hysterical. And it totally matches her personality. So we laugh, a lot. We call her name and she wiggles and that’s all I can say. You just have to know her to love that her name is Pizza.She is your typical Labrador with a lot of personality. A very easy addition to our home, our family and our pack of dogs. She is the only female dog in the house.She bonded to me first. Then she warmed up to the crazy crew that lives here. She is initially more comfortable with women and men just take a little time. She now loves my husband and son. She knows they aren’t going to hurt her or treat her any differently than the ladies of the house.She loves her tennis balls and I’m convinced she thinks she has to scoop them all up and take to her crate as if they are a litter of puppies. She gathers what she claims and it goes in her crate. She loves her crate but she is now just as happy to lay down in the middle of any room, roll over and command attention to her undercarriage. She loves ear rubs and attention of any kind.
She loves to supervise us cook, bake or just handle food. She LOVES food. She came to us at a whopping 137 pounds . So…

November 28, 2020

We are so in love with this girl! She is everything we love in the Lab breed! Gentle, fun, friendly, sweet and in love with her humans. She has only been with us since Tuesday but she is by far the easiest foster we have had.

Pizza had a bath yesterday or I should say “we” had a bath…. at 137 pounds everyone was wet when we were done️️. No accidents in the house, snores in her crate with the door open and gets along with my dogs, although my Moose who is half her weight is slightly intimidated. Stella on the other hand knows Pizza can’t catch her so she is up for the games.

Pizza knows sit, shake, stay and drop it when she chases the tennis ball. She has chewed up every ball in the house but doesn’t eat them. She is very vocal and seems to try to make Conversation  with me when I say what? What? Tell me again!

Pizza will be spayed next week and put on a diet/exercise program to reduce her weight. While she swears she is just a  big boned girl, we know extra weight is never good for a Lab’s legs! Stay tuned for more updates as XL Pizza Pie gets ready for adoption soon ♥️♥️