Pupdate

Decker's son Port has been off staying with my friend Julie and her family for a few days. He is coming back to our house tonight to spend the next two days, then we will head north to meet up with his new owner, Alex and turn him over for his travels to his new home in Canada. It will be a little bittersweet enjoying these last few days with him, but it is time for him to move on and we hope to get to see him occasionally and get frequent updates.

Ecko has surely been enjoying having him around and I got some pics of them playing on the back patio last weekend.

I have gotten reports on several of the pups and hope to have contact information for all their new owners soon, so I can keep tabs on the little guys.

Piranha Puppy Port

Decker's 10-week old son Port has been staying with us for the last 10 days and I am exhausted! It's so easy to forget how much work puppies are when you haven't lived with one for a while! I am a firm believer in puppy "management" when the situation does not allow for supervision, but the bottom line with puppies is you have to do a whole lot of following them around and teaching them what the rules are. If all you ever do is tether or crate your pup, he won't learn the rules very quickly, if at all. In addition, the little guy needs to get up in the middle of the night for a potty break still. I am SO missing having an uninterrupted nights sleep...

Port has been sleeping nicely in his kennel at night. During the day, he is in a spacious kennel run in the garage. I run home from work on my lunch hour to let him out for a romp in the yard, then it is back into the kennel run with his lunch. He gets free range of the house and yard in the evening when we are home and gets escorted to the yard frequently to remind him that he is to potty there and not in the house.

• He has been to the river twice and swam like a little fish on his second visit.
• He went for a walk to the end of the block and back and made friends with a scary fire hydrant.
• He likes to tug with the braided fleece toy and gets quite fierce about it.
• He likes to retrieve for a few tosses, then loses interest (no attention span yet).
• He eats like a little piglet. He has been getting mostly kibble with a ground raw prepared food, but this AM he had his first raw chicken wing, which he took to with gusto.
• He has teeth like a piranha and the adult dogs and humans in the house are doing their darnedest to teach him how to use them appropriately.

Altogether a fun little dude and I think his new owner Alex will have a blast with him when he heads north to live with her in another week. Some day when Decker is retired from agility, I think we will have to find one just like this for Jan to run

Catching Up

I don't know if that is actually possible, as things seem to be moving at whirlwind speed lately.

Last week saw a quick trip to watch the Decker x Shasta litters temperament test, followed by a flurry of communication between Cindy and I to discuss puppy placements; the arrival of a new girlfriend for Decker; a private lesson with some nice folks with a 14-week old Lab puppy; and a three-day trip out of town to judge a water trial (leaving Jan behind with all the hormonal dogs!).

Most of the chaos revolves around fun and exciting things, so I remind myself to just hang on and enjoy the ride.

Recently I blogged an excerpt from an article by Kathryn Lanam regarding behavioral development in dogs. This article is one that is included in Pat Hastings book "Another Piece of the Puzzle: Puppy Development". I really enjoy this article and reread it every time we have a litter of puppies. I have not compared them side by side, but I believe the link below is the same article as can be found in the book:

http://www.briardbreeder.com/info.html#Behavioral_development_of_a_puppy

Photos are of Decker and Sydney (his new girlfriend).