Aug 10, 2012 Puppy training begins

And then there were 2!!!!!

Ari and her brother, Vader, are out at Kim's home doing some obstacle training and a little more....

Please be careful when you are working your puppies and be mindful of their physical developmental stages. You will see that Tony and Kim are careful not to have the puppies jump down off of heights and keep the training sessions short and interactive.

Have fun ;-D

July 29, 2012 7 weeks!!

Took the pups that were here and the pups that were local and went out to Kim and Sandy's for the after noon of training......

Miss Colorado, now known to her followers as AJA, Miss Atlanta, known to her followers as Journey, Ari, Mr. Ontario, known as AIK, Above the Law and Kassi all went out to play with Eh, Vader .... it was a family reunion!!! 

For Aja, Journey and Aik it was their first car ride. No one threw up, big bonus for me!!! They walked out of the crate and out to Vader's run like they owned the place. Truly clones of each other!! Puppy squabbles, agility equipment, hanging them in a harness and a glacier run off creek were in their immediate futures.... 

And the documentation speaks for itself..... 

Aja started her new life experience traveling back to Colorado. I can hardly wait to share her antics with you as she grows up. Cheryl has her hands full with Aja and half-brother Talus!!

Hope you all enjoy as much as we did...

July 24, 2012 Silence is golden!!!

Hi All,

So how did your crate training experience go???? Sunday night for me was brutal. I think Ari has got to be the longest and loudest little one to crate train!!! OMG, sleep was in 20 minute intervals.... it was a challenging night....

See, the rumor you heard that we give away all the noisy ones isn't true.... We fix 'em!!!

Monday, Ari seems to be getting the play pen and crate idea... noise is down a great deal. Monday night - wait for it - she went to bed at 1030 pm and 'whimpered' for 5 minutes, rolled over and went to sleep. I had to get up at 430 am to travel into Vancouver to support friends with a very sick adult child, and she didn't wake up when I got up and left. Whose jealous of that????? I know I am. I would have dearly loved to catch up on my sleep but that was not the destination of the day....

As it turned out, this 30 year old child, had emergency open heart surgery and heart valve replacement today. Had they not taken him to the OR this morning, he more than likely would have died this afternoon due to complications of a blood stream staph infection. It was a tense day. I am happy to share that he has survived the surgery and the small bleeds (strokes) to his brain (also a complication of the staph infection) did not re-bleed. He was able to move all his body parts and nod his head when asked to.  Step-mother/father/sister/brother and friends cannot ask for more.

Unless, I get home to find that Ari is being an angel.... did you know that 'quiet' can actually mean quiet? And in my kitchen? YES!!! It's true!!! I am a little happy that she has decided that she can do this.

I hear that Pink Collar, got up only twice on her second night of training which is fantastic (I hope it was matched with when the baby woke up to eat and not in between).

Red Girl went home today and I will find out how she did tomorrow. Anyone else out there wish to share their successes?

Well, I'm off to finish laundry and clean up before my kids get here for an overnight visit ;-) This day makes me appreciate my kids even more. If you have them, give them a hug. If you don't, find some (and not in a creepy way) and give them a hug. You never know what waits for us around the next corner of life.....

July 21, 2012 .... and then there were 6....

The first proud parents have taken home their new charges....

Dark Blue boy, known to his new family as Rip and on paper as Abraxas, which means.... (oh no, I forgot, but it sounded fantastic. new family send me the meaning and I will post it.) left yesterday afternoon. I'm sure they are half way through crate training today.... fingers crossed

Pink Frill girl (pink and grey collar), known as Lika to her new family and on paper as Alchira (again, didn't write it down so... forgot it ;-(  ) went home Friday afternoon as well... here's hoping it will be a good night for them...

Vader, Green Boy, went to stay with Kim until the weather cools down in Iowa. Apparently, he sang all day and only when Sandy gave him a stuffed snow man did he hug the snow man and go to sleep. Awe!!!

Solid Pink collar went home today too. Tony was home and didn't get the names... Sorry, not much to report there....

Ari, came in this morning and sang, opera style, loud and long for most of the morning. I then had an out of town friend with a family health emergency, which took me to Vancouver General Hospital for most of the day, so she went back out to the kennel to join her siblings. The ICU admitted sick child is stable tonight so I will be back at the crate training tomorrow. I work Monday so I am highly motivated to get this done so I get some sleep Sunday night. Tony won't hear a thing so even if he gets up with her, i'll be a wake.

Spent much of the evening cleaning out the double kennel that the puppies have been in for the past couple of weeks. Did I mention that would shavings are great for absorbing messes? It's true. Not so great at cleaning up though... I think I'll be chasing around wood chips for the next several weeks. I also closed the door between the kennels (so they are now in a single kennel) and set up their obstacle course differently this afternoon. We will see if they figure out the long tunnel tomorrow.. Hopefully, Tony will video tape it and share it with us all...

Tomorrow, Teal boy goes home and Tuesday Kassi (red girl), on paper Assandra will be going home. That pretty much leaves the out of town group waiting for their new families to arrive.


Good night all!!

July 18 PS...

OK, I forgot an important message around vaccines and puppies.....

Puppies have been vaccinated but that does not mean that they have developed sufficient antibodies to be out in dog parks or other areas that are frequented by dogs.... This is the first in their vaccination series and they will not be sufficiently covered until the series is completed...

Please, keep your new puppy safe by taking sufficient time for their antibodies to develop until you take  them out into public areas.

cheers,

July 18, 2012 40 days

Hi all,

Puppies start to go home on Friday and so we had work to do .....

Puppies were wormed, vaccinated and microchipped. They were the quietest group of pups ever. I don't know if any of you have seen the gage of a microchip needle but it looks to me to be at least a 14 gage. Sizes of needle get smaller the bigger the gage number is. I would be crying if you stuck me with a 25 gage which is pretty standard for vaccinations for people too!!! Many of my dialysis patients use a 15 gage and I thought those were big. A 14 is even bigger!!!

So, who goes where????

Green boy, 'Vader' (toying with registering him as 'Eh, Vader)  is going to Iowa to join Cass Country Sheriffs department

Teal blue boy is joining a lovely local family with twin boys and a little girl.

Dark blue boy is also staying locally with David and Heather

Light blue boy, Ash z Canczech, is going to Ontario with the super star goal of training for the World's Schutzhund championships - best of luck on that!!

Black with pink paws (peach), call name 'Journey' and registered name to be determined,  is going to Georgia to be with Reghan ;-) all smiles there...

Red girl, call name 'Kassi', is staying local with two young girls and Uncle Kel, to play with.

Solid pink (mauve) is staying locally as well but has two young boys to play with.

Pink with black stripes (yellow), call name 'Ari' and her registered name will be Anarchy z Canczech, is staying right here and planning to play with Tony (I think she will raise a little more than cane!!!)

Black with pink tiger stripes ( dark pink) is going to be going to Colorado to raise a little h--- with her half brother Talus...

Pink with grey spots is staying locally as well.

Well, that is all my news for this evening. Hope all of you are getting as much sleep as possible before the weekend so you are prepared for crate training.

night ;-D

July 17, 2012

The kids continue to grow and are eager to come out to play. They are able to run all the way around our small yard. Vaccinations, worming and microchipping tomorrow evening and then they are ready to take on their new homes Friday afternoon!!! Got your crates????

Interestingly enough, no one has sent me a name yet. I've had thinking of this or that but no 1st, 2nd and 3rd choices for their registration.

feeding has been cut down to three times a day.... they look like they are starving don't they????  lol
They are still being group fed which means that I need to feed a little more than I would an individual puppy to make sure everyone eats and no one truly fades away.

They are eating (for 10 puppies): 3 cups of Nutro - Natural Choice - Chicken, Rice and Oatmeal small bites puppy food, 1/2 cup of yogurt and about 1/2 cup pablum plus hot water just to mix it all together. The soaking time has been decreasing and they are actually eating solid food.  I am feeding their water and goats milk separately after they have eaten their solids. There is less and less milk being added to the water to transition them to just a water dish. Have to be careful that they don't dehydrate...

When they get home they will be eating (3 x per day) 1/10th of this recipe.... so 1/3 cup of dog food, teaspoon or so of yogurt (no pablum) and clear water on the side.

We don't feed at exactly the same time everyday to prevent them screaming in the kennel when they think it's feeding time. They have great internal clocks and they are amazingly accurate!!!!

That's it for this morning... off to work..