20 January 2012 10.00 AM -31 F Clear and sunny
I was full of good intentions about keeping a fairly regular update going about the puppies and their progress. It is an amazing thing to watch those newborns change on a daily basis. Sometimes you could swear they are bigger at night than they were that morning. Anyway, like many of my intentions, that one too, fell by the wayside.
So, here’s the latest on the Gang of Four. They have just turned 10 weeks old and are really starting to display their characters and traits that they will have as adults. So far, we’ve not seen anything that marks any one of them out as a bully or thug – they all take their turn at the bottom of the wrestling heap with good grace. The communal feeding is still in full swing, for all of the 2 minutes it takes them to demolish the entire bowlful of food. There has been the occasional grumble about a shared bit of ground beef, but it’s no more than a ” hey that was mine” passing comment.
They had been getting outside to play and explore, but this past week with the temperatures dipping so low, we’ve kept them inside and let them play in the relative warmth of the garage, rather than tearing up and down the front yard.
Everything’s an adventure when you’re little
This week has been quite the week of experiences for the pups. They got meet Hop - who has many nicknames, including Hop The Terrible, Hop The Impaler, Hop the Merciless and my personal favourite, Grumpy Hop. Fortunately for the pups, they were all safely enclosed inside an airline crate and Hop was on the outside. It was a bit like one of those shark experience cages – dangle a limb outside the bars, and you could be left wishing you hadn’t. Anyway, Hop was actually incredibly well behaved, didn’t bother the pups at all and during the whole journey, which we feared she’d spend tormenting the little ones, she was more concerned about the view out of the front windshield.
The purpose of the journey was a trip to the vets. We could do the puppy shots ourselves, but it is nice to have a professional check them at this young age and also, if the puppies felt hard done to for being stabbed by a big needle, we weren’t the ones doing the wielding. Additionally, I’m pretty sure I don’t need another distemper shot after stabbing myself in the thumb a couple of times doing the “big dogs”.
Today, the pups got to come and visit some of the house dogs and spend the afternoon in the living room. They were a bit tentative about leaving the security of the garage and their known surroundings, but with some coaxing from their mum, Cuchi, the bravest little explorer soon emerged. Brooks was first to venture out into the big open spaces and took off at a great pace onto the rug only to come to a screeching halt when she noticed Ciobair standing in front of her. It has to be said that Ciobair is probably the softest natured dog we have, as well as being an excellent guard dog, she adores pups and always wants to round them up and make sure they are ok. I’m sure she must look like Godzilla to the little ones, but she soon wins them round. Old man Bhu was the other adult left inside to meet the pups, an experience he seemed to enjoy less than they did, and after a few minutes, he politely asked to be allowed to go outside.
Cuchi appeared quite happy to pass on some of the mothering responsibilities to Ciobair and had a fine time, playing with puppy toys and getting people attention, without having her 4 babies hanging off her.
Shredding their toy ??? Me…. no, no, not at all
Still small enough to get 3 heads in the water bowl at the same time.
Brooks practising for when she’s an old, retired sled dog.
A quick pen picture of the pups would probably go something like this -
- Dawson – king of the toys, that boy loves his toys and everyone else’s too.
- Braeburn – the athlete, he loves running and jumping.
- Tess - the speedfreak, likes to be ahead of the rest when running around outside
- Brooks – the lover and the explorer. She’s nearly always first up for a cuddle.
Andy said:
How do you like Xaros ? run him in lead at all? Is he warming up to you, Looks like I should have used him at stud while he was here harness breaking and training.. Nice looking pups.
gealachmor said:
Xaros is doing well. He settled really easily and is a lovely dog to have around. He is doing well as a team dog and occasionally gets to run swing, but has just not shown enough reliability as a leader to be trusted on a sled. Another season of Fall training will help us all.
Andy said:
When he get really settled and lets you.. He was pretty darn good leading here.. had a bit of a whose chassin me attitude at times but was getting better about that..
Yep time on the trail together.., My 2 cents… keep him up towards the front,, will help him get comfortable about the gang behind him.. I always felt that was holding him back as a lead.. a nervousness about that gang chassin him. Smaller teams of his buds he did real well with.
Irene said:
Gorgeous photos peter. The puppies are beutiful, just like their mum. I love the quilt on the sofa. Did Joyce make it? I am making one for Lyscha at the moment.
gealachmor said:
Thanks Mrs M.
No, Joyce didn’t make the quilt, although she does keep saying she would love to learn quilting. I’m afraid that quilt is a discount item from a huge multi-national corporation the name of which I can’t bring myself to say. But your daughter was giddy with excitement at going there……….