One of my favorite things about this summer has been having my sister and her family around.  My sister lives in Arkansas so I only get to see her and the gang about once a year.  This year, we were lucky enough to have my sis and her three kiddos stay with us for two weeks.

I wasn’t quite sure how Piper would do with the youngsters.  She’s been around our other nieces and nephew during visits, but we’ve kept those interactions short.  Piper is, after all, 70 lbs of young Labrador energy.

Soooooo…how did it go?

Better than I could have hoped!  Piper was SO gentle* with the kids, and they loved playing with her and bossing her around.  My sister was initially hesitant about the newcomer (she’s extremely loyal to our calm 13-year-old Lab, Rylie), but Pips ended up winning her over in the end.

All four cousins had fun playing on the slip-n-slide.  Uncle Ben may or may not have fractured two ribs while attempting to join them, but thems the breaks.  Hehe. Sorry Ben, but I couldn’t help myself 😉

The kids also looooooved “training” Piper.  We taught them Piper’s basic commands (wait, off, sit, down, stay, up, drop it) and they used them with gusto.  I got more than a few chuckles out of 5 y/o Ken booming “ZWOP IT!” when playing fetch with Pips.  She also was partial to leading Piper around by the collar for reasons known only to herself.  7 y/o Peej, a gentle soul, brought out the calmer side of Piper.  She enjoyed sitting at his feet, stretching across his lap for belly rubs, and giving him soft kisses.  He was the first one to develop a strong training voice, so he was the first one she obeyed consistently.  Abs, who is almost 9 y/o, went a step above and used the advice in the book 101 Dog Tricks – Kids Edition to play some new games with Piper.  Kid-in-a-box was my personal favorite:

It took Piper awhile to get used to sharing the couch, but she eventually figured it out.  Or, I suppose, everyone finally decided to just share their seats with her 🙂

At the end of two weeks, it was hard to say goodbye.

We may have slacked a bit on Piper’s nosework training for these two weeks, but the socialization she got with her cousins was well worth it!

*The kids enjoyed making Piper jump on command, which is NOT a trick we encourage.  As a result, they sustained a few chest and back scratches from over-exuberant “ZUMP”s.