June 13 Pupdate

Rainy, rainy morning so the puppies had to help me clean up their room. As Ann says, many paws make for lighthearted work. I definitely need to expand their room again already so I can close off the pottying part. This will be the last expansion, after this I’ll add crates and then they’ll start sleeping in crates. They are growing up way too fast.

The puppies were more than happy to greet MiMi and DiDi last night and this morning. More people to add to the list and DiDi even has a beard. (What is the holy grail of puppy visitors? Maybe a uniformed fireman with a beard?)

Indy’s Cindi (it has been suggested that that may sound nicer than Dog Cindi. I’m not sure she minds since we got GuideBitch on the back of her last Team Jack shirt) may not get around to writing her part of the blog for a while since she has other things in her life besides puppies. (Poor thing) I’ll make it a separate entry when she writes it.

The puppies have a new game with Doodlebug. I’m not sure how this is fun for her but she continues to play with them. She licks the puppy’s face (oten while someone is holding it.) The puppy licks back, paws at her, chews at her face, etc. Eventually the puppy gets hold of her tongue – AND HOLDS ON! (I’ve encountered those teeth and they are starting to get pretty sharp) Sammie doesn’t growl or anything, she just pulls back until her tongue finally snaps out of their mouth. I’ve known she has a high tolerance for pain since the toenail incident at the water trial (she pulled a toenail COMPLETELY off during the day and we didn’t find out until late that night when we were going to bed and Indy kept after that foot. Quick completely exposed and she let us mess with it and bandage it and clean it and she never even complained) but this has to hurt. She goes right back to playing with them after she gets her tongue back. If it was only one puppy, I’d have to call it the cat but it seems to be a game the whole litter will play.

The ‘tunnels’ are ready to go in the indoor and outdoor play areas next. That should give them (and me) hours of fun filled entertainment.

The puppies definitely watch where people (and dogs) go and wait for them a little while. Their attention spans aren’t that long so they often give up before the people come back but they definitely watch. I make a concerted effort to stay out of the puppy pen when people are visiting them because I don’t want the puppies to ignore them to try to come to me but it’s hard. Jill doesn’t have the same rules. If it’s someone completely new, she even gets in and nurses the puppies just so everybody knows whose they are. It seems to be working out ok at least at this stage of the game since they all seem to like everybody.

Have I mentioned that they are absolutely adorable? It bears repeating. They are staying awake for longer and longer stretches at a time now and playing harder and harder during that time, too. We’ve been having a big tag team cage match at least twice a day and they are starting to chase each other’s tails.

Green managed to get up on the stool tonight. Purple tried and tried so Cindi gave her a little boost but then after she got off to wrestle with another puppy, Green Bela managed to get up there all by herself though. We all cheered and clapped and she seemed to think we were quite strange and then went off the other side. Since it is a stool for people (I use it all of the time for dog showers,) I don’t leave it in there all of the time.

The puppies have gone nighty, nighty, nighty and I am headed that way myself. Sweet puppy breath dreams from