Waiting...

Five minutes after passion with Monte, both Emma and Caldas declared that they are pregnant.

It is hard to believe that Caldas is the same dog as the sex crazy bitch that was chasing everything on four legs a week ago.  She loves puppies, whether her own or any others, and now she has decided that puppies are imminent and she has to be prepared.  She has started nesting in her bed, arranging the blanket for maximum comfort for her soon to be family, and prefers to spend all her time either curled up there, or curled up on the sofa with me, as close as possible and preferably on my lap with her head under my chin, looking soulfully into my eyes. Where is the little firebrand who spends her time running and jumping?  When she is outdoors she does remember that she is a podengo and loves to run around.  But it is not easy to persuade her to go out – she looks at me from her bed saying, “But I can’t leave my puppies!  How can I?”  “But Caldas, you don’t have any puppies! You won’t have any for seven weeks!”  “It doesn’t matter, I have to stay in practice!  I can’t leave my potential puppies!”  The only thing that will tempt her to leave her bed and come out is to go to the refrigerator and take out a bit of sausage – a treat still has a lot of influence, though she does think about it for a few moments before getting up…

Emma has always been very affectionate.  But now!  She wants to spend all her time on my lap (it is rather difficult with both Emma and Caldas pushing and shoving to take over the largest part of my lap…), and if not on my lap, then pressed as close to me as possible.  She is constantly looking for cuddles and petting, and has started to lick my face, something she was never keen on before.  At night, she crawls under the blankets so that she can press herself as close to me as possible. I have to be careful not to roll over suddenly at night, because there is that little lump of podengo pressed against my side. 

Rather than following me all around the house, the two of them have started to take up positions on the sofa or my bed and just stay there nesting.  Each one seems to think that if she gets up, then her rival will grab the better place (both Caldas and Emma have decided that the spot they have taken over is the best, and can’t be shared.)  I am determined that this time, no one will be having puppies either on my bed or on the sofa – but we do not seem to be in agreement on this point.

I am finding that there is little room for me on the sofa these days and not much more in bed…

And there are seven weeks to go!!!!

The Lady and The Tramp

Caldas and Emma, the two podengo girls, have just been in season.

Caldas is a little firecracker, in ordinary life, but even more so when she is in season.  She is extremely enthusiastic and from very early days of her season on, she flirts, kisses, licks, mounts, plays, flashes her tail, and sticks her rear end in the face of everything with four legs.  She couldn’t care less if it is a male or female, big or small, everyone is welcome to try and satisfy her raging desires.  I have no doubt that if, in this period, she met a cat or some other mammal, she would try to entice it as well.

She also has a very long season, and for several weeks she goes around trying to find someone who will give her what she wants – sex!  She adores Habibi, and will not leave him alone.  She is about as high as his ankle, and there is absolutely no chance that he could ever do anything to satisfy her, but she will not give up.  She flirts with him endlessly, pawing at him to get up when he is lying down, running after him and shoving her rear in front of his nose, inviting him to play, anything she can think of.  Habibi looks at her with a despairing expression – “What do you expect me to do?????”, unable even to get his paws underneath her.

This time, I decided that the two girls could be bred, it is a good time of year, there are no other puppies around, and there is starting to be some interest in the breed.  So Monte, the prospective father, came to live here for a few weeks, so that he could do the job.

Caldas was thrilled!  She was so excited that she almost exhausted him with play before she would stand still enough for him to get down to business.  But she finally stood, and Monte did the job.

Immediately, as Caldas found herself “trapped” in a tie, she started to scream at the top of her lungs, twist around like a dervish, and do everything she could to try to get loose.  “I just wanted sex, this was not part of the bargain!!!!” was her attitude.  I had to hold her head so that she didn’t injure Monte or herself with her bouncing around.  Although I have found that the podengos are unbelievably flexible and athletic and bounce like a rubber ball….

Caldas is not a virgin, she has had one litter.  She knew exactly what she was doing, but after all, putting on a show is very important.  And all the while this was going on, Caldas’ tail was wagging like a helicopter propeller…

So Caldas is the Tramp…

Emma is a very different personality.  She is quiet and gentle, even in play, and she much prefers cuddling to crazy activity.  She gets along fine with the other dogs and is very tolerant of everything, but has not shown any particular preference for anyone’s four footed company, she much prefers people.

With her, it was hard to see that she was in season at all, she was extremely clean, and not at all demonstrative.  But when she was introduced to Monte, it was love at first sight.  With him, she was happy to play, and to flirt, and to stand without complaint.  Her season also has been quite long, and she was constantly asking to be let out with Monte.  These podengos certainly are determined to get pregnant….

Habibi has been much more attracted to Emma than to Caldas.  Apparently she is a very sexy lady.  He follows her around, whining, trying to get down to her level (impossible…), courting her and trying to get her attention.  He looks at me in desperation – this is not fair, two bitches in season, and neither for him!  And Emma is so beautiful…!

Emma, however, is not in the least amenable to his intentions.  She ignores him, and when he becomes too much of a pest, Emma, who has never in her life growled at anything, snarls at him to get away from her.  “Just because we both sleep in the same bed,” she says (my bed, by the way), “that doesn’t mean you have any rights!  I love only Monte!”

Emma is the Lady…

Life

It has been a long time since I have posted.  Yes, I am still alive, still at Shaar Hagai, and still surrounded by dogs.

I was having a very difficult time for some months, and didn’t have the energy or will to write.  To start with, I was not feeling very well.  I am a very healthy person for the most part, and as someone who spends a lot of my time doing physical work, I tend to have various sorts of aches and pains which I try to ignore.  And since every day I look in the mirror at a face that is a little older, I also tend to believe that this kind of feelings are a natural result of being over 25.  But I finally came to the conclusion that the way I was feeling was more than the normal aches and pains – I was exhausted all the time, had no energy for anything, my legs felt weak (not great when you live at the top of about 50 stairs which you have to climb many times a day), and had aches in muscles I never realized existed.  So maybe it was time to consult the doctor…

My doctor has known me for many years, and she knows that I do not just come around to complain.  But she couldn’t find anything specific that was wrong with me. So the agenda was to do all the various tests that she could think of.  A huge nuisance for me!

While this was going on, I had puppies.  A population explosion of puppies!  First was the litter of podengos, and then a few weeks later, two litters of Canaans – one with six puppies and one with ten puppies!  It is very rare for Canaans to have a litter as big as ten!  And I had certainly not planned to have so many puppies around!

Then there was a tragedy – two of the three podengo puppies, which were adorable, sweet and happy little things, got sick with an unidentified virus at six weeks of age and died.  Although the vet and I did everything possible, only one survived.

This was extremely depressing for me, but also a source of tremendous stress.  I had sixteen younger puppies, and I was terrified that they would become infected also.  Of course I tried my best to disinfect everything, but a dog breeder does not have a sterile environment…I watched those puppies like a hawk, analyzing anything that was even slightly out of the ordinary.

To my great relief and joy, the Canaan pups did not catch the strange disease, and grew rapidly.

Sixteen puppies, as you can imagine, is a huge amount of work. And a number of these puppies were destined for new homes abroad, which meant they would have to be with me to a minimum age of three to four months, and some for longer.  This meant that in addition to the usual work of raising a litter, I had to start taking all these puppies out in the car to see new places and meet new people, teach them to walk on a leash, and some basic proper behavior, and all the other things that it is necessary to do with a growing puppy so that it will be happy and well adjusted.  Considering my “normal” state of exhaustion, this all required superhuman efforts.

But finally, most of the puppies were off to their new homes, where, to my great satisfaction, they settled in and adjusted well, and life became a bit easier around here.

While all of this was going on, of course we had a little war in Israel….True, sadly, that this is not a very rare event, but it certainly did not help, especially when a few of the young people that helped me out sometimes were called up for army duty.  This was much more disturbing than the few bombs that were blown up over our heads…

And of course, the usual problems of not enough work (and with the war, even less), not enough money…

So I did not do any writing.

Finally, in August, I had a few days off, to go to the World Dog Show in Finland. I had been looking forward to this for a long time, a chance to get away, get out of the heat of the summer (although it turned out to be just as hot in Finland…), meet a lot of old friends and dog people.  I gave a lecture for the International Collie Society, saw some wonderful dogs, and had a lovely time, although the exhaustion was always there in the background.

On the way back, the airline I was flying with apparently decided that they could save on service if they froze us into suspended animation.  I was prepared for the normal cold on the flight, I was wearing a jacket – but this cold was really something I not expecting!  And of course, there were about three blankets available on the flight for two hundred or so passengers, and I was not one of the lucky ones…By the time I got home, not only was I exhausted, but coughing, sore throat, sneezing….I fell into bed and other than getting up every now and then to take care of the dogs, I stayed there for about ten days.

Finally deciding that maybe this was a bit exaggerated, and maybe I should really see the doctor, before I died of pneumonia and left my dogs all orphans, I dragged myself to the doctor’s office.  She did not immediately pack me off to the emergency ward, she prescribed some antibiotics and sent me home.

And it worked!!!! Maybe all I had needed for the last six months was a course of antibiotics!  Finally, after ten days of treatment, one day I woke up feeling human again!  Antibiotics are actually a good thing!  Maybe if I had taken them when I started feeling poorly, I could have avoided all this…but I am afraid that in future my behavior, which is a very well established habit pattern, will be the same…

So I still have the normal aches and pains, still have plenty of things to do around here, still have no money and plenty of debts – but this is what I am used to coping with.  So here I am again!

Caldas

Although Caldas seemed to be very reluctant to give up her sex life – she seemed to be in season and begging for male attention for longer than any bitch I have known – she finally was finished, to Habibi’s great relief.  She soon began to show the signs that she was pregnant.  As her belly grew and grew, she found it more and more difficult to leap onto things way over her head, and to squeeze out of fences and pens.  However, knowing her proclivities, I arranged a whelping pen for her in the kitchen, with a nice big crate with comfortable bedding, surrounded by a very nice strong puppy fence.  She inspected it and approved, and this became her sleeping place at night.

By the time a month had passed, her belly was very apparent, and as the days went on, she began to look as if she had swallowed a football.  This did not at all dampen her spirits or influence her to behave in a more matronly fashion, but it was really funny to watch her making her leaps in the air for attention with this huge belly.  She also was very solicitous of Habibi’s attention – even though technically nothing had happened, she seemed to believe that these puppies were his.  Habibi was not very interested…

It was getting difficult for her to control herself for more than a few hours.  One night, I was rudely awakened by Caldas leaping on my head in the bed with a wildly beating tail, to tell me that I had to get up and let her out, time to pee!  What a good girl!  But then I realized that to do this, it meant she had jumped out of the whelping pen.  How, I really don’t know, she is much cleverer than I am at figuring out things like that.

So now it was necessary to build a roof on the whelping pen, which I did, with some pieces of fencing which I tied on across the top.  And my night schedule now regularly included a three a.m. pee break for Caldas.

She also was eating more erratically, as obviously her stomach, pressed on all sides by these developing pups, could not hold very much food.  She was getting several small meals a day – this made the other dogs very jealous, and made Caldas very happy.

As the expected date for the whelping approached, I kept watching for signs.  Well, yes, she was roaming around the house, nosing here, scratching around there, checking out the sofa and the dog baskets, and obviously looking for a good place. But no stress, no panting, no introverted expression…

The week she was due, my schedule was planned so that I would be at home almost all the time.  This was her first litter, and my experience with little dogs whelping was not vast, and I wanted to be with her.  The days went by, no signs of imminent puppies…

Saturday we had a dog show, and the other two podengos, Monte the prospective father and Emma, were entered.  I would only be away for a few hours.  I carefully watched Caldas’ behavior in the morning – she was as active and chipper as ever.  She ate her breakfast and looked at me – “I am fine, you can go, nothing is happening.”

So off we went to the dog show, where Monte and Emma did very well.  And in a few hours I was home.

And there was Caldas, on my bed, on the pillow, with three big fat clean active podengo puppies.  She had managed – and don’t ask me how! – to get out of the whelping pen, even with her enormous stomach, and had gone to her chosen spot.  No mess around the house, and not even any mess on the bed – the puppies were born on the pillow and she had cleaned everything very thoroughly.  She was extremely pleased with herself – “You see, I had to wait for you to go away. I knew where I wanted to have my puppies, and since you didn’t understand that, well, I just had to wait so I could do it alone!”

I love primitive dogs!

Sex

Caldas, one of the podengo girls, has come into season.  It was expected, I have been keeping a close eye on both of the girls lately, as this is about the time that they are due.  Habibi has also been keeping a close nose on them, checking them out carefully every day when they go out to pee.  But since there are a few other bitches in season in the kennel at the moment, I was not sure if he was really hinting something to me, or being hopeful.

It became obvious that he was hinting when I spotted a drop of blood. Yes, one drop!  Okay, I thought, Caldas is just starting her season, so there is not much blood around yet.

I started to figure out the logistics – the podengos live in the house with Habibi, and I don’t really have an outdoor kennel that is suitable for a little dog – especially a little dog like Caldas who jumps like a kangaroo and is a total escape artist.  So she would have to be crated in the house.  I anticipated three weeks of hell, with Caldas protesting being jailed and Habibi protesting for other reasons.

But after a day or so of being crated, I noticed that there was not a spot of blood anywhere.  Caldas is an incredibly clean dog, and if I had not by chance seen the one spot of blood that she hadn’t managed to clean up before I noticed it, I would not have noticed that she was in season at all.   Canaans are very clean, and it is often very hard to see that they are in season, but this was really amazing – in the house, after all, where everything is visible.

Habibi was also taking everything very much in stride.  He was sniffing around, but didn’t seem to be stressed or over anxious.  I thought that Caldas must be at the very beginning of her season, so under the circumstance, I could let her out of the crate until she got to the more interesting days.

This made Caldas very happy!  And the expression of her happiness was to run after Habibi, stick her rear in his face, flag her tail strongly to the side, invite him to play, and tear wildly around the house inciting him to follow.  Caldas running through the house leaping on the sofas and beds is one thing, but Habibi bouncing around after her is something else entirely.

And this behavior – obviously, Caldas was not at all at the beginning of her season, she was right at the stage of looking for a mate!  This was on the third day from the time I noticed the blood spot – what a little sneak she is…!

Habibi was ready to play with her, but (to my surprise!), he made no attempts to try and mount her.  I underestimated him – he is not stupid, and it is obvious to him that there is no way that he could stoop low enough to even get a foot under her.  He stands there with a resigned expression as she flirts and does all she can to be sexy, and turns his head away when he is lying down and she comes over and shoves her rear in his face.  The things a dog has to tolerate…!

I made an appointment to take her to meet her intended husband, a beautiful young Portuguese fellow.  We met at the kennel where I work.  I sat on the side waiting for the dog to be brought in, Caldas sitting quietly on my lap watching the trainers working with other dogs.  But as soon as Monte appeared in the doorway 30 meters away, Caldas ears pricked up, her body quivered, and she leaped forward almost pulling the leash from my hand.  A very eager bride – and who says that dogs don’t recognize others of their own breed?

So we will be expecting some new additions in a few months. 

Meanwhile – poor Habibi….Emma, the other podego girl, is also due to come into season at any time….

Snow

For days, the weather forecast had been for a very stormy weekend, starting from Thursday and on through Saturday, with lots of rain, wind, and a good possibility of snow in the areas here where there is usually some snow every winter.  Jerusalem does usually have one snow day a year, with a few centimeters of snow, and then half of the country drives up to Jerusalem to see it, creating, of course, huge traffic jams. By the time most of the winter-starved visitors get to town, the snow has mostly melted and what is left is slushy and dirty.

Many friends asked me if I was ready for the snowstorm.  No chance of snow here, I told them, we are below the snow line.  The snow usually ends about 4 kilometers from us, which is at a higher elevation. Where we are, the temperature is usually just a few degrees too high for snow and certainly not cold enough for the snow to stick.  The last time we had a big snow here was twenty years ago.  So I was not worried, we wouldn’t be having snow.

Friday morning I woke up to a dark freezing house, no electricity, and outside the window, everything covered in snow.  True, the snow wasn’t very deep, only a few centimeters, but it was enough to cover everything in white, weigh down the trees and bushes, and knock out the electric lines.  Although we had no way of hearing the news at the time (having become a total resident of the modern world, I don’t even have a battery operated radio at home), the storm had been quite severe, with heavy snow further up the road and into Jerusalem. The weight of the snow had brought down electric lines, and trees that fell on the electric lines, and the repairmen from the electric company were unable to get to some of the locations to fix the lines, due to piled up snow.  And the storm was still going on, rain all over the country, and snow still falling in the north and in Jerusalem area.

The snow we had was not nice fluffy fun snow, it was heavy, wet, slushy snow – it was cold enough to freeze, but not cold enough for it to last.  By early afternoon it was mostly melted away.  The dogs were not impressed by this, they found it annoying that their feet were cold, and that everything was so wet.  This wet snow was much more penetrating than rain, and all the dogs looked thoroughly miserable.

It's an advantage to be a smooth when it is wet out...

Cold feet!

The rain kept falling, and there was still no electricity.  You would think that, since I had spent 17 years living without electricity, this would not be a great hardship – but I have become thoroughly spoiled and accustomed to modern amenities.  I don’t have the equipment to cope with a lack of electricity now, so was left sitting with a few candles around the room, reading by flashlight, with five sweaters and a blanket to keep warm.  Habibi and the podengos joined me on the sofa, any suggestions that they might want to go out for a while met with scornful looks.

We were lucky – the electricity in our area was restored by the end of the day.  In other parts of the Jerusalem area, there was no electricity for as much as four days.  The snow had stopped traffic (just to put things in proportion – there was altogether about 40 centimeters of snow in Jerusalem). People were unable to get through the streets and abandoned their cars at the side of the road, which made it totally impossible for anyone to get through.  For the electric company workers to get to the places that needed repairing, first the city had to tow away all the cars that were blocking the way.  The highway to Jerusalem (the main highway of Israel) was completely closed for three days, and people were stuck either unable to leave their homes or unable to get home.

It was quite nice, though, to be able to look out and see a totally empty highway, where usually there were masses of cars and daily traffic jams, and to enjoy the quiet. 

Fortunately for us, we got our electricity back after only one day without, and the telephone and internet were back after two days.  Parts of the area were without all of these essentials for as much as four days or more – and our modern society is so dependent on this, that there are few people who have emergency equipment – heaters working on kerosene, camping lights, or anything of that sort.  And it was very cold (by Israeli standards!), and very wet – not at all pleasant.

There has been a lot of criticism of the utility companies for not repairing things fast enough, of the government for not being prepared…I must admit, that being without was very frustrating, but the companies worked very hard to try and get things under control.  And somehow, no matter how prepared we may think we are for all eventualities, nature always wins in the end!

The dogs were not impressed.  They ran around as usual in the snow and the rain, and, to my surprise, were quite quiet – often the silence when there is little or no traffic encourages them to bark – they can hear the echo from the hills opposite us and think they are answering those “other” dogs.  But this time, apparently the peace of the snowy hills influenced them, and they ran and played with little barking.  Even the podengos, after a few minutes of protest and foot lifting about the cold and wet, began to dig around in the snow to see what was under it.

Habibi, however, found all of this absolutely unnecessary and annoying.  He was not at all interested in exploring the snow and cold, and when forced to go out, he sat on top of the dog houses, to remove himself as much as possible from that slushy stuff.  He knew that his job was to keep my feet warm, and was very glad to perform such an essential task.

We are back to normal now, normal winter temperatures which are about the same as summer temperatures in a good portion of the world. The dogs are dry, most of them have been groomed to get rid of the relics of the bad weather, the highway is back to normal activity, and the dogs are barking as usual.

The Unholy Fourteen

I hadn’t had a collie litter for nearly two years.  There is nothing as sweet as a collie pup, and there were a few bitches who were scheduled for the next litters.  One was Chance (my enthusiastic sheep herder), who was now four and a half and had not yet had a litter.  I didn’t really want to wait longer, and risk possibilities of pregnancy or whelping problems.  And now I had a male that would suit her beautifully. 

The second was Kate, my smooth girl, who had produced several outstanding litters for me, with show winners and service dogs.  She was now seven, and, although she absolutely loves having puppies, this would be her last litter.

I didn’t anticipate having a large number of pups.  Chance was from a litter of one, and her mother in her previous litter produced only three.  The intended father, Tattler, a new boy that had arrived from England only a few weeks before, was only a year old, and inexperienced.   Kate, at seven, well, I didn’t expect a large litter (although in the past she had had litters of eight and nine pups), at her age, I would be happy with one lovely little female that could carry on for her in future, as she enjoyed her golden years in peace.  I even had a name for that one puppy – Legacy.  This was to be a repeat mating of a litter from two years ago that was very successful – and had only four pups.

As is common, all the bitches came in season about the same time.  Chance and Kate were bred at almost the same time.

I am not one that runs off to do ultrasound exams – I always felt that it was possible to wait for the two months of pregnancy and then see the results.  The two bitches did show signs of being pregnant.  Kate did not look at all big, so I expected my one puppy, just hoped it was a girl.  Chance did develop a belly, but nothing out of the ordinary, and it didn’t seem to affect at all her energy, spirits, or desire to catch helicopters.

As the whelping dates approached, everything was ready, each bitch had her own room with a box, and neither of them showed much interest.  Kate was due first and was experienced, so I had no doubts that when the time came, she would have no problems.

Then, several days before due date, Chance started to show signs of imminent whelping.  She wandered around the house, poking into corners, ignoring the comfortable box, (of course!) and trying to persuade me that my bed was the proper place…She was not in stress, not panting heavily, and I could see that there was still time.  I left her in the whelping room, and went to bed, but of course, was up ten times during the night to check. She looked at me with a calm gaze – “What are you so uptight about???” and went back to her introverted thoughts of what was happening inside…

In the morning, she was kind enough to let me finish feeding and cleaning the other dogs, and then she started to produce puppies.

Chance was very efficient about it. This was her first litter, but she acted as though she had already delivered many pups.  She efficiently pushed them out, cleaned them, and went on to the next.  I sat in the room with her, offering her water occasionally, but other than that, I was totally superfluous.  Four puppies, five puppies….”Chance, “ I said, “that is great. You can stop now!”  Six, seven….she stopped at nine.  Six sables, three tricolors, 4 females and five males.  The puppies were a few days early (the pressure of carrying nine puppies had evidently had its effect), and they were tiny little things, an average of about 150 grams – but vigorous!  From their first breath of air, they headed straight for the nipples – obviously they inherited their mother’s great love of food! – and latched on.  I was prepared with such a big litter to give them a supplement – but they were not the least interested, only mama for them!  And regular weighing showed them all gaining weight as they should.  They were strong and content, even if small.

Litter two was born two days later. Kate did not give me any early warning signs, she quietly had her puppies in the middle of the night, and in the morning I found her contentedly nursing five – four girls and one boy, including my little Legacy.

14 puppies!!!!!!

The first three weeks are of course no problem.  The puppies are only interested in eating and sleeping, and the mothers are calm and content, relaxing with their kids in the box, cleaning them and enjoying motherhood.  Once I saw that Chance’s nine were all nursing very efficiently, growing, and strong, I could stop worrying about them – even though at this point Kate’s pups were twice the size.  But I knew they would catch up in time.

As we approached the magical number of 21 days, life began to liven up.

This is the point where we start to see the difference between smooth collie pups and rough collie pups.  They may be basically the same breed, but….

Chance’s little fluffballs indeed became alert to what was happening around them, to people coming into the room, to the new experience of real food, to the noises of the household, toys and so on. But they were gentle and well mannered, and although they would stand up with their front legs over the top of the whelping box, they came out only by invitation, when I would lift them out to let them run around in the living room.

The smooths became aware of everything at the same time – but for them, new things meant interaction.  What a strange idea, to sit in the whelping box and watch the world go by outside it!  They insisted on being in the midst of things.  By the time they were three and a half weeks old, they were not only climbing out of the box and running around the room, but they were using the puppy fence as a ladder to climb up onto the sofa, from which they would bungee jump back down.  No arrangement of box and fence helped, whatever I tried, they surmounted.  Life is not meant to be closed in a box!!!!  When I opened the door to come in, they were between my legs like a flash and running for the freedom of the whole house.  And they were fast and determined!  Food – well, the gentle mannerly nibbling of the roughs was unknown here – they dived into the food bowl with all feet, and gobbled.  Keep in mind, this was all going on with puppies that were under five weeks old.

Their introduction to the great outdoors was as expected.  The roughs sat in a pile next to the steps and cautiously moved forward inspecting everything and watching mommy to see what was expected behavior.  After a few minutes of examining this fascinating new world, it was time to start running around and playing and enjoying the new toys they found outside – but always at a reasonable distance from the steps into the house, their known safe place.

The smooths, on the other hand, from the minute their little feet touched ground, took off like little streaks of lightning in all directions, and I could almost hear the “Wow!!!! Look at this!!!! Look at that!!! I need to taste everything!!! I need to pick everything up!!!! I need to bungee jump down those stairs!!!!” as they tried to do everything at once.  I was kept occupied preventing the bungee jumps…

As they got a bit older and more “experienced” in life, the whole bunch of puppies played and ran around together and the roughs learned from the smooths (not the opposite, of course, that would have been too easy), and they all ran, played, jumped, chewed…Great fun for all!

Except for me, of course, who had to try and watch 14 little bouncing balls scattering all over the yard, picking up and chewing everything in reach, getting in the water dishes (that is great fun!), and then finding some mud to dig in…

Keeping 14 active puppies clean and presentable is no picnic – by the time I had brushed one clean, the ones I had cleaned before were ready to be cleaned again.  These puppies were well acquainted with having quick showers in the bathtub from a very young age.

It is always very hard for me to part with my puppies, I am always tempted to keep them all – but of course that is not possible,  I have to admit that with these guys, as each puppy went to its new home, the difference in activity and amount of care was very apparent!  Each one had such a strong personality that it was very noticeable when it was taken out of the group.

Ten puppies have gone to excellent homes, and some of them have a future as therapy dogs as well.  Four have stayed here (obviously I was not going to be able to let them all go!)  My little Legacy is here, of course, her pet name is Robin, and she is smart, learns everything immediately, and then thinks about whether she wants to do it. Her tricolor rough brother, Lucky, is a big awkward boy with a very sweet nature and no idea that he is bigger than the others.  The two Chance kids, Topaz the female and Tawny the male, take after their mother – they have not yet paid much attention to helicopters, but like their mother, they love to run after the hose pipe and try to grab the water, they nip at the shoes and pants legs of visitors trying to herd them, and they are extremely talented at climbing fences to get into my poor little patches of garden that are meant to be protected from the dogs.

Well, four is easier than fourteen….