Winding down here, but gearing up elsewhere.

The pups are still quite the joy and I get more smiles per mile from them than from anything else in my life now. Each day they change and become more individual. It is getting harder to think of fun things I can give them or do for them. They are ready to go be the kings and queens of their castles. It is becoming more and more apparent how important one on one attention is. I honestly don't know how people with more than a few dogs can give their babies that kind of attention. I wish I could figure it out. I feel incredibly lucky to have Wiccan willing to take on co-ownership of Ginger as she can take her part of the time as well, and Ginger can hang out at the shop with her for stimulation and socialization. I still take each pup out on errands, one at a time, but there is never enough time, and I feel I am slighting the others. It is interesting. It will be very hard as each one leaves, but none will be as hard as Saba was. He is doing great, by the way, and they adore him. Having perfect homes certainly does help. Meanwhile they grow, and stretch, and change. The ones that I shuddered at a bit, are now having me scratch my head and go "wow." I have given the pups all I can give. I will not change a thing next time around. It is such a short period of time in my life, and it was fun to do it the way I did. It would simply not be worth it to do it any other way.

After Saba went to his new home there was quite the shake up with the other four. The dynamics changed completely. It was quite fascinating. Now they seem to be dividing themselves up by sex. The boys hang together, and the girls hang together. With the odd number they were never paired. (Duh!)



"Sunny" in his new home



Two days ago I was excited to have figured out a litter pan for the babies. I scored a plastic tray that goes under a washing machine. It is about 30"x30" and about1.5 inches tall. I then went and got some pine pellets and came home delighted to begin the puppy pee and poo in the pan process. It was not as easy as I would have hoped; is it ever?? At first the pups were afraid to step into it. You could hear their little brains going "ewwwwww." Once I put one in, however, they all joined him and then the fun began. They quickly began eating the pellets. So I threw a potty pad over the top of the pellets. It then became a game of "pull off the pad and get down to the good stuff." Pellets flew. (They do NOT feel good on bare foot, by the way.) There are even pellets in the bathroom that I don't use. So the pellets are no longer in the picture. They are out in the woods. Where I dumped them. Enjoy, little forest creatures. The neat tray has a puppy/bed pad in it. They love to play in it and are quite careful to quickly jump out when they need to go potty. I now have put a used pad in there in hopes of encouraging them. I will know by morning if it works.



the master bath




or perhaps it is the spare bed!


I built an outside play area as well. It is all made with 16' hog panels. Four of them. Because I tied the ends together to bring them home she are no longer flat but slightly arched, so they formed more of a round pen. I have T posts to stabilized them and they are zip tied together. I have to work out a gate system. Anyone who has pups knows that if you open the door to put a pup in, three others will run out and then go in all different directions, laughing as they run. The panels are almost four feet tall, so much too tall to drop and retrieve pups. For now I have driven in two posts and put in a baby gate as  the drop and retrieval area. The pups got to play for a couple of hours as I took a sledgehammer to the posts in an effort to get them deep enough to support the fencing, yet not so deep that I can't remove them. This is only a temporary pen and the panels will be stored when I am done. I went out and laid on the grass nursing my owies with puppy love. Nugget taught them the joys of rolling in dried slug. It was so worth the blood and sweat. However, a bit of patience would have saved me on both of those as I have friends with post pounders. I just didn't want to wait. I will get some pictures tomorrow of the pups in the pen. I needed to get in the house and that meant pups come in too. Tomorrow I will also figure out how to lid it and then can leave them out less attended.

As my pups start leaving the nest, other Nugglets are in the works. It is quite exciting to be able to share my boy with others. I can only hope that the breeders will be as blessed and lucky as I have been with my litter. I look forward to seeing some in the ring in the future.

With that I am off to bed. After I take some Ibuprofen. I am very sore and already stiffening up. (At least I worked off some of the cake from last night's dinner.)