Chilli was the second born and the smallest puppy. His puppy name was Chili Pepper, and his
new owner has kept Chilli as his call name. He earned his nickname not only because of his red collar ribbon, but
because from a very early age he showed his spicy, rascally temperament. He is charming, way too
cute for his own good, cuddly and just a little opinionated. He was the first one walking and shows
signs that he will be athletic and quick. He has an incredible prey drive, loves to retrieve, and loves
to walk under your feet and eat peonies. He has gone to live with Sandy and Tim Farr who live near Atlanta,
Georgia. He will learn obedience, hunting, and possibly other endeavors as well -- Sandy is an accomplished
trainer, and with him, the sky's the limit. The Farrs also have two other Goldens, Danny and Burberry, and
their son's Westie.
News about Chilli, Fall 2007
Christmas Day:
Merry Christmas from Danny, Boo, and Chilli!
December 2:We put the tree up today and Chilli has been bringing me ornaments throughout the evening.
Now they are tired. Here's a picture of Chilli by himself, then one of him and Boo together and as you can tell they are best buddies.
I missed a couple of good shots a few minutes later when Chilli put his front legs over top of Boo.
November 10: And Chilli, my sweet boy. Well he is so very adaptable. You know most people only get that one
special dog that makes a huge impact on their lives. I think I am very lucky because I seem to have gotten
more than one. Chilli is so incredibly bright that sometimes I can see him thinking. He has been
refusing to bring back marks lately and he will run out full speed to get it, Stop, think about it, turn
around and look at me and then you can see him thinking I don't think I want to get that right now.
We're working through that now. He has been starting to cuddle with us on the couch and often climbs in bed
with us for a while. This morning I slept in and about 6:15am Chilli had decided he was not waiting any
longer to eat. He came over to me and began barking. He has personality plus and can he jump. It is
incredible how high he can jump. I can not tell you how much I absolutely adore and love this guy.
October 22: Chilli just got back the vet. He is legal now that he
just had his rabies vaccine. We just need to do a lepto in a couple of months. That's the one I really
dread but since he is going to be in the field it will be a good idea. He weighs 48lbs now.
October 17: Chilli took to the water like a duck. Right in and immediately began swimming. Took
a few strokes with his feet above water and then got the hang of it within seconds. He leaps through the
water like a dolphin and always made sure he got the bumper. He has a great take off to go after the bumper.
Next time I may see if he will jump off the dock. Have the feeling that won't be a problem. Chilli always
made sure he got a bumper even if he had to swim to someone else and take it from them, although Danny got
tired of that and refused to give his up. We did have to keep Chilli on a long line since he would run to
keep the bumper away from anyone else. Danny the mother hen though, kept grabbing the end of the long line
to bring him back in.
October 15: Chilli and I have been working on RH and LH over casts and he is doing quite well although we haven't
attempted to go from food to bumpers yet. Yesterday we started on the RH and LH back casts and he caught
on pretty quickly to that to0. Still working on the hold until asked to drop but that will come with time.
Discovered there is a nearby state park that has a lake that I hope to get him to in the next few days.
October 10:
I have started puppy casting with Chilli and in a little less than 2 weeks, we should be able to start
into the mini T drill. He is also doing well with his fetch, hold and drop, and marks. He is gaining a lot
of confidence and lately I haven't noticed anything he is afraid of.
September 17:
Chilli and I had an awesome weekend. It was somewhat last minute, but we drove up to meet with Lorie Jolly
and do some training. She is incredible! We intend to get together with her as often as necessary to do
the field work. She does not use a force fetch and her dogs are incredibly awesome. It was a lot of fun
working with them and experiencing their drive and work ethic first hand. Chilli had a blast. He loves
birds, dokkens and is not afraid of gunfire and when he wasn't training he hung out with his Dad. Speaker is
an very sweet soul and he and Chilli enjoyed playing together.
News about Chilli, August 2007
August 3
My daughter took the boys out to play on the slip and slide today. She attempted to teach Chilli to slide
and of course we didn't get any pics of it since he decided to slide after we were cleaning up (I think it
was just an accident but pretty cute).
Sara absolutely adores him and he her. He is so funny and I wish I could capture some of his antics with the
camera, but by the time I would get the camera he would move. Today he was sleeping on one of the dog
beds all stretched out with his head hanging off the edge and his tongue sticking out. And every now and
then I won't see him get up and leave the family room and if I go into our bedroom, he will have climbed up
onto our bed and be asleep. A couple of times he has climbed onto the couch and Burbs will be standing
beside it and Chilli will jump onto his back. He has even gotten Danny to start playing again. They play
tug or chase each other and occasionally they wrestle.
August 13
A little feistier Chilli is emerging. The past couple of days he has decided he likes to get into the trash
sitting in our office, jump off the back of our chair in the family room, and put his feet up on
the kitchen counter. He loves to snitch the laundry now, too. I guess you could say he is becoming a
typical golden. His legs are getting longer again, too. I can barely pick him up anymore.
We have been trying to head up to the playground each morning and play on the equipment which seems to be
building his confidence. It is also helping by getting him out by himself without the other guys. We
usually try to do a few retrieves in a grassy area nearby and walk around the area just to see what is
going on. Lots of good distractions such as golf carts, golfers, tennis players and other people and
dogs. His nicest retrieve though was this afternoon in the backyard. He ran out and fetched his dokken,
brought it back and delivered it to hand. It was a beautiful retrieve!
You described Chilli's personality perfectly. He is not timid towards people at all and has this little
prance and almost a growling noise he does as he approaches anyone which is really cute. He may always
be a little timid towards new situations although he's not doing too bad either. Sometimes it's good to
think before you leap. He really has a fantastic personality and even getting into the things he is
doing now is not bad. He is very good about releasing things when I give him the "drop" command except for
any paper he has shredded and is chewing.
Chilli weighed a whopping 35.4 lbs at the vet today!
After swimming, 8/2/07
News about Chilli, July 2007
July 8
Chilli is doing great with his training. He has a VERY strong sit and does a nice heel and sit front.
Down is only if a piece of food is there and we are having some issues walking on a loose leash (collection).
We hope to change that in the next couple of weeks as we switch around collars. He is now old enough to switch to a volhard collar to do
some very light corrections to get his attention. We will use the flat collar for agility. We are going to
start tracking and will use a harness for this. He will have different equipment including leashes for
each type of training so he knows what is expected and what he is going to be doing. Retrieval work is going
pretty well although the last couple of days he has been refusing the fetch command with the dumbbell. I
need to think it through and think if I am giving him some signal that I shouldn't be. He does a sit on whistle
command and I hope to start hand signals in the next week.
His coat is beginning to get darker so it is now splotchy in color. I sent his AKC papers in -- his registered name will be
Fernhill's Sizzlin' Red Hot. His little temper shows up every now and then but is nothing serious. He now growls at
Danny if he walks too close to his food bowl which is just too funny because Danny does back off even though
Danny is the alpha. Burberry and Chilli play constantly.
Lately, Chilli has gotten really attached to the drapes in the family room. We call them his blanky. Hopefully
this week we will be working on a place board. Chilli has to maintain the sit on it with distractions so we will
try for a picture on it. Should be a good test for him although we will do it in the back fence in case
he doesn't maintain as his recall off leash is not good. Also I do all off leash training on leash until
I am 100% sure he will listen to the command.
Chilli will be going in for his last shot this week so I'll let you know how much he weighs now. He is a
sweetheart and we are enjoying him so much. He now crawls up on the couch with us.
July 15
Chilli was so funny last night. We went for a walk down a different part of the golf course and there was
a lot of area in the rough along the edge of the path so I let him walk off the path and run through the
long grass/weeds and he was like a kid in a candy store. He couldn't get enough of it.
July 17
Chilli seems to be growing like a weed especially his legs which seem to keep getting longer. He just
got back from the vet where he had his very last distemper parvo shot. Glad those are done and he
weighs 31.4 lbs. He is also teething right now so we're not doing a lot of retrieving since his mouth is
sore. He just got his 2 top front and now his bottom front are coming in and his gums are pretty swollen by
his canines. He is doing fabulous on his obedience work and LOVES the water or at least his wading pool.
Our other golden, Burberry lays down in the pool and Chilli puts his face under the water so he can bite
Burbs' leg. Now that he is vaccinated we hope to get him to the lake soon to do some real swimming.
July 30 (email to other puppy owners from this litter)
Chilli is teething now as well and is chewing and eating anything he can get his mouth on. I think he
is swallowing his baby teeth as so far I have not found any on the floor. He probably weighs close to
what Sedona does now as a couple of weeks ago when he received his last distemper/parvo he was a little over
32lb. and he looks as though he has temporarily quit growing upward with his legs which did look like
stilts and is right now filling out some. His coat is coming in wavy. Don't know if that is from Hilfy or
Speaker or maybe both. He is quite the little talker as well. Lorie told me she taught Speaker to whisper
as well so we may try that, too. He is a social butterfly and loves people and other dogs. He brings
lots of smiles and gets lots of attention anytime we take a walk or go somewhere.
He is doing awesome at his obedience work. His strongest command right now is sit (I don't use a stay
command) and I can come out full length of the leash and put a little pressure on it and he will maintain.
He will also sit on the whistle and we no longer have to chain the command. We have also added distractions
and the majority of the time he does maintain. Down is his weakest command and I expected that although
that is improving quickly as we switched to a snap around puppy collar for training. We have also
started with him maintaining on a place board. Hopefully in a couple of weeks we will be the point
where we can put on the long line and begin the off-leash work and getting better at the hand signals.
We have temporarily stopped formal retrieval/fetching training due to his teething as his mouth is quite
tender and Lorie suggested just doing some fun retrieves with very soft items. We had hoped to get
together with Lorie for some field training in August, but we have decided to hold off until his mouth isn't
as tender. We hope to start into some agility training instead and some tracking. Hopefully, we
will find a free morning before the dew burns off soon to start the tracking. I have the feeling he will
love it as we have taken him for walks in the woods and through tall grasses and he usually has his nose
to the ground. He also has this new thing where he comes running towards something and then he just leaps
into the air. Hopefully this will carry over into his water entries because it will be awesome if he does.
He isn't always the bravest little guy, but we continue to introduce him to new things and situations
and he is doing great at adapting. Hopefully we will get him to the lake in the next week or so. He adores
the wading pool we have and will put his face under and bite on our other golden's foot underwater.
Ok I've gone on enough about our little Chill pill, but he is just an incredible little guy. Can't wait to
hear from the rest of you guys!
Listening, 7/10/07
Looking down the hill, 7/10/07
News about Chilli, June 2007
June 8
Thought we would let you know how our sweet boy is doing. He is such a joy! He has decided
that 5 am is a good time to get up and since he sleeps through the night we let him, but we don't feed him
until around 6:30 or 7:00 just in case he thinks he would like to sleep in. He is essentially
housetrained and doing extremely well on his obedience work. You touch that treat jar and he comes running
and ready to work even if he is sleeping. He is always carrying something in his mouth and Burberry is
quite okay with that unless it is one of his tennis balls although Burberry hasn't quite figured out what
to do about it. We are working on the fetch, hold, release in your book Lorie and we use the paint
rollers and a puppy bumper I have. He loves the agility tunnel and the water. Tim and I laugh all the
time because you said he was opinionated and had a little temper which he does, but he is one of the most
laid back golden puppies we have ever encountered. He has understood from Day 1 that Danny is the alpha. I
think Chilli will be number 2 in line with Burberry being the bottom guy and Burberry doesn't mind because
he is enjoying playing with Chilli every day.
Chilli's 10-week portrait, 6/12/07
June 23
Chilli is doing great! He isn't always the bravest little guy and he relies on the big
guys for back up, but we sure do love him. For instance the other day behind us in the woods an old
tree fell. As soon as we began to hear the crack of the wood, Chilli took off and hid behind a bush unlike
the other guys. It was actually pretty cute! He has mastered going down the steps now so it's nice since
he is almost too big to carry down now. I can't believe how fast he is growing. Pretty soon I won't
be able to pick him up which I will miss. We found some dumbbells which we are using and we now have
bumpers to work with. Lori Jolly has given us something to work on, too. She is wonderful in helping us!
A cozy sleeping place, 6/22/07
Bath time, 6/23/07
Naptime on the air conditioner vent
News from the Farrs, May 2007
5/16/07:He did well last night for his first night away from his littermates and mom. I laid on the floor by the
crate because he had a hard time and let us know he definitely wasn't happy. Once I laid next to the
crate he settled down. I got some sleep and actually more than I expected.
Karen, he is soooo sweet! He can put up quite a fuss when he is not happy. We have been working on the
recall this morning and he is doing very well. Housetraining he is doing fabulous!
Danny is very gentle with him. Burberry turns out to be quite jealous and has become very possessive of his
toys. We have even heard him growl for the first time, but I don't think that is going to last for long.
5/15/07: All I can say is what a doll! We arrived home about 5pm and he was an angel on the trip back. He has had a
very busy evening. He has checked out the backyard, played with Burberry and Danny and met his "cousin"
Simon. Simon thought that since he was bigger than Chilli, he had the upper hand. Wrong! Chilli is
definitely Speaker's son as Chilli told him he was not putting up with that. The boys showed him the agility
tunnel but he decided not to try it this evening--too much going on. Right now he is sound to sleep on Tim.
Chilli at his new home, 5/15/07
Chilli with stick, 5/15/07
Chilli at Fern Hill
Chili with his new family -- Tim and Sandy Farr, and their other dogs, Burberry and Danny, 5/15/07.
