July 2 Pupdate

Well, it’s all downhill from here. The first puppy went home tonight. She’ll be back and forth all weekend but it’s still sad to have her go. Indy’s Cindi took the Green girl, now known as MiraBella (probably more Bella though.) none of the other puppies have asked where she went and Indy’s Cindi says she’s doing well so far.

The puppies had a nice long playtime outside this morning. They didn’t do any escaping but I did have to rescue the water shoes that have been sitting out there to dry. I cleaned their room inside while they ran and played and gamboled around. They generally seemed to have a good time but I haven’t known them not to have a good time much ;-)

They are getting pretty nippy at times. SammieDoodle and Jill are helping them with that but they also do a lot of telling each other what is too much to use those teeth on each other. I appreciate that.

Limey picked out his new person today. She and her dog came to meet him and he took right to them. While we were visiting, Maya’s (the green girl from the last litter) people stopped by on their way back home from the Greenbrier trail. Unfortunately, Maya didn’t get to come but the puppies were happy to play with the girls. What seemed very telling was that Limey kept choosing to lay at her feet. Often, the puppies will keep coming back to me when other people are around so I often try to stay out of their reach. But this time, we were all right there and he just kept hanging out with her. He also seemed to get along well with the older dog (also named BlackJack.)

Eventually, we brought the puppies back inside to have a siesta and took her BlackJack to the pond to see if he had any interest in swimming. Armed with milkbones (they float) and a couple of dummies, he and I went into the pond. He swam but not very easily so we put the lifejacket on him. He had a pretty good time after that and would swim for the dummy as much or more than the cookies. He was waiting for me to throw it again instead of waiting for the cookie for bringing me the dummy. And he wasn’t trying to leave the water to go to his mom on the shore. It was nice to have a nearly 11 year old doing what he was bred to do – even if it hasn’t been his favorite thing in the past.

When I let our big dogs out, (Jack is supposed to be on walking sedately/crate rest while his neck is healing so they were crated while the company was here) Jill had to be let into the puppy pen so she could nurse the babies. They were only too happy to oblige.

Limey (new call name not definite yet) is going to stay here until Tuesday afternoon so he’s not the first to leave and so he doesn’t have to face any fireworks alone. They haven’t minded the ones they’ve heard here but there’s no point in pushing it by combining leaving home with fireworks.

I better get them ready for bed and go drown my sorrows in fudgesicles. Maybe someone should tell them to be horrible little puppies so I would look forward to them leaving but I’m not sure they could be that bad. They all have that sweet little PWD face that makes you forgive all anyway ;-)

A little less puppy breath to send your way tonight… Nighty, nighty, nighty