Today the puppies went on a road trip to Sue’s agility building. I was thrilled with how they did. Longest car ride yet, new surface, new smells. It was REALLY windy and noisy and they all dealt with it perfectly. They had a GREAT time! So thankful to Sue for allowing this!
Michelle Fromm and I became friends a decade ago at the Swedish Vallhund National Specialty in North Carolina. Our similar focus and priorities means that we’ve ended up working together on several litters now and our lines of dogs seem to mesh very well. I wanted to use Michelle’s Zar since I met him all those years ago, and Michelle and I began planning this litter back when Alice was just a puppy.
So many miracles happened, as they do. Not only did we have a successful frozen semen breeding (thanks to Renee and Dr Gray at Alliance), we had a VERY successful one, with SEVEN amazing puppies. So far I am absolutely thrilled with this litter, I am very excited to see them grow up. Michelle was always going to be taking a puppy home, and she’d had her eye on Green Boy for a long time. We’d talked back and forth a bit about her taking two, and she fell in love with Purple Girl, so both of them will be headed to Arizona! Most people should never think of raising littermates, but Michelle has the experience and the time to do it.
Green Boy is now Garion, AKA Alkemi Eclipse at Caliente LT. Purple Girl is now Alora, AKA Alkemi Emira at Caliente LT.
Carpet cleaner = loud. Puppies who’ve had sound desensitization at the right age/stage (thank you Puppy Culture!) = no problem.
The puppies eat almost all their meals in crates now, they climb over each other to get in! Food is a very strong motivator, and the best way to show a dog that something is positive is to make it true. They take turns in different crates with different bedding.
They start going home next weekend, I am really happy so far with how they are turning out!
Red Girl:
Orange Girl:
Yellow Girl:
Green Boy:
Blue Girl:
Purple Girl:
Pink Boy:
The puppies had their first official trip to the vet (where I work) yesterday (they’d been for happy visits a couple of times first). They had their checkups, first distemper-parvo shots (once again, I had a nomograph run on Alice, so we knew that the ideal vaccine times for this litter were 7 and 11 weeks for DHPP), and microchips. They did GREAT!
They’ve also been eating at least one meal a day alone or in pairs in crates, to help them start learning that crates are ok, and I will also start feeding the ones who may be flying on a plane to go home in a Sherpa bag so they are used to that too. You can’t guarantee that they’ll be perfect, but at least they’re getting some experience with it!
Only their second time on the table and they did great! Stills from video so, you know, quality.
Red Girl:
Orange Girl:
Yellow Girl:
Green Boy:
Blue Girl:
Purple Girl:
Pink Boy:
I made a couple of mistakes here. They could see the older dogs through a baby gate and that was so much distraction for several of them. Ideally I should have done this sooner than a week after the last time. So I did help a couple of them out.
As usual, video is unforgiving and my timing isn’t as good as it should be, but they all got the idea! You can see that a couple are in mild fear periods, but they played anyway! This is really just to get them to understand the idea, I start with a few click then treats (baby food), then start right into clicking and treating for looking at/touching/approaching the box. I have never really felt that charging the clicker more than these few times is necessary, and I think it can even muddy the waters.
Loving these puppies so far! (also, this is the room they were born in, but they haven’t been back in here since they moved to the big house, and they haven’t been here since the whelping box was taken down, so it’s a pretty new environment for them too).
Red Girl:
Orange Girl:
Yellow Girl:
Green Boy:
Blue Girl:
Purple Girl:
Pink Boy:
(tomorrow). Stacking 6 week old puppies is like stacking Jello, but here they are:
Red Girl:
Orange Girl:
Yellow Girl:
Green Boy:
Blue Girl:
Purple Girl:
Pink Boy:
