All Gone But One

Remy and Beckett flew out this morning, together in the same crate. They're going to be living within a short distance of each other in Salt Lake with families that are friends. Which means they'll get to see lots of one another.

Remy weighed 10 pounds 12 ounces at the vet on Tuesday
and Beckett was 13 pounds 8 ounces.

It is interesting to me that the pups are in the same formation, size-wise, at 3 months as they were at birth:
Elliott and Beckett the largest with Spider and Brother the smallest and in between, from larger to smaller, are Marco, Charlie, Remy and Lola. That seldom happens. And there WAS some shifting around getting to this age.

Which leaves Spider
Gonna have to get serious about finding her a home now that everyone else is gone. Of course, Wombat will miss her terribly, but maybe she'll develope some manners if she has to deal with adult dogs rather than a pup that is half her size!

Happy Birthday

The pups are 3 months old today. I know! Seems like they've been around forever! Even in dog years, they are still infants.

Another One

Marco's new mom flew in from Chicago to pick him up this afternoon. He went to the groomer this morning and looked SOOO beautiful... but he came home for a couple hours and played with everyone else. What can I say... he's a puppy! Marco weighed in at 12 pounds 1 ounce yesterday. I'm fairly certain he's going to get all the care and attention he needs... his new mom and dad just got back, yesterday, from a vacation trip to Washington DC. And while they were there, Dad had a heart attack requiring some surgery. BUT Linda still came after the puppy today. Marco's got it made in the shade!

Spider
Just wanted to know what her weight was up to on the official veterinary scales, so she went with me and Marco yesterday. She is 9 pounds 6 ounces! Made them weigh her twice just to be sure.

Two More in Their New Homes

Elliott left, on schedule, Saturday... which is more than I can say about Lola who was supposed to travel then as well. Let's start with her.

First off, Lola weighs right at 10 pounds and, outside of getting wet mouthed every time she was in the car, seemed to handle the trips to the groomer and vet... and TWICE to the airport... without problem. Saturday morning, at 4:30 (yes, AM,) the price in Delta's computer was more than $65 higher than what I was given over the phone. It was more than $65 higher than what it cost to ship Charlie two days before that and he weighed a little more and was in a bigger crate. Since I prefer to not spend other people's money without their permission and since it was 2:30 in the morning in Colorado, Lola and I returned home. Michelle wanted her shipped on Sunday, BUT Denver cargo is closed on Sundays. (Heaven help you if you are in Denver and need a heart transplant which becomes available on a Sunday...!) So, Ms Lola didn't leave until this morning. And today the price was correct in the computer.

I can hardly WAIT for Thursday when I'm sending TWO pups in one much larger crate and the quoted price is the same as for Charlie and Lola. We'll just see...!

Now, Jack Elliott... 15 pounds. Needless to say, he's the largest in the litter. And, according to Caren, the smartest. He learned to walk on the lead within a few minutes and has figured out air conditioning vents in the floor.

Pet Insurance

Some of you have asked about pet insurance. Marna (Montana's mom) uses VPI (Veterinary Pet Insurance.) She received excellent service from them with her first puppy and signed Montana up as soon as she got her. And that's all I know on the subject!

Additional on 7/26/10:
Caren reports that she has used the Kroger pet insurance for years. It is available in their grocery stores and on line (krogerpersonalfinance.com) and comes with a variety of options. She carries the catastrophic insurance, rather than the every day run of the mill care, because she figures that is what she'd have trouble with in the event of an accident.

One Down

Brother left this morning. He let his new family hold him without rolling his eyes. In fact, he barely moved at all! He weighs 9 pounds 4 ounces.

And Charlie and I are going to be at the airport by 4:30 in the morning. He weighs 10 pounds 14 ounces.

Both boys did very well at the groomer (where they didn't want to be separated from each other) and the vet (where they both fell asleep on the exam table.) The first car ride was a little frightening for them, BUT by the time we got done late yesterday, they were settled in... a little wet mouthed, but that's about it.

Lola and Elliott are next on the list, both leaving on Saturday.

Update on Rehome

I had to run over to the vet's this morning to pick up a prescription renewal (thyrozine for Keogh, my doodle.) Now, going to my vet at any time takes a while. I don't know exactly what it is as they seem to have enough staff and everyone is always busy but everything takes forever... checking in, waiting for a room, checking out. And heaven help you if you have an emergency and have to go as a walk-in! But Saturdays are always like Black Fridays (isn't that what they call the day after Thanksgiving?) When I got there, the lobby was full so I called... from their parking lot... to tell them I needed the refill and then went to eat breakfast. Forty minutes later, I returned... and stood in line for over a half hour. There were only 4 people ahead of me, and 2 of them had appointments, but we waited in line. Then the vet tech whose mom adopted Moonie, the rehome, came into the lobby and told me how well he was doing. She said the 2 of them have become inseparable and she's not sure which is more enamored of the other. Moonie stayed at the vet's just a couple days before going to his new home and everyone there fell in love with him. It's nice when things work out so nicely... and so quickly!

Have I Mentioned...

These are Smart Puppies
It's almost noon, the door to the outside via the deck is wide open, the pups (who LOVE it outside) are loose... and they're all IN the house. Even Wonbat who was born and raised outdoors. Several of them are chewing on my fairly new straw broom... I get a new one before every litter... but the rest are lying in front of the floor fans. When I say it's hot here, you can believe it!

TWO Smart Puppies
Yesterday the crew was here cutting the grass. And last evening when I went to bring the pups inside, two of them were outside the fence. I thought they had widened the hole under it which they started after the rain earlier this week. One, Elliott, was standing outside the front gate yipping to let me know he couldn't get in. The other one was all the way on the opposite side of the yard, at the back gate. As soon as she saw me, she came tearing all the way around the fence to the front and waltzed right in. Now, THAT is pretty smart for a little bitty 11 weeks old infant no matter what the species! By the way, that pup was... Dora the Explorer (aka Remy.)

And they had not finished the escape route under the fence. The back gate... where Remy was waiting when I went outside... was unlatched. The pups managed to squeeze thrugh to get out but couldn't figure out how to open it enough from their side to get back in. I wouldn't have found it for a while except Ost and Rida got out this morning and I caught him wiggling his butt back in. (Rida, like the puppies) came in the front gate.)

Missing Street Found (Temporarily)

The vaccines showed up, right on schedule and my regular driver just grinned and shrugged about the mix-up. He stayed just long enough to take a gander at 9 puppies staring at him from the yard and deck, made no comment and drove off. Not one peep out of the pups although the guys in the house were almost spastic.

Now, just to make the story interesting, I got a call this afternoon from a breeder in Florida. She said "I've got your vaccines here." Here's the backstory... a couple years ago, she bought a dog from me and had Jeffers Pet dropship a crate to my address. Ever since then, Jeffers seems to think everything she orders should go to Tennessee rather than Florida. She emailed me a few weeks ago that something she had ordered had been misdirected to me and I should be on the look out just in case Jeffers wasn't able to straighten it out before it was delivered here. (Get the picture? If I order it, no one can find me. If it's sent by mistake, it's here promptly.) Anyway, it never showed up and it pretty much slipped my mind. HOWEVER Friday, when MY vaccines (being sent air rather than ground, from an entirely different company) some how made their way to the Fed-X GROUND facility and those folks remembered shipments to me were supposed to be redirected to Florida and apparently, that is what they did. I can't make this stuff up!

And since it is 8:40 PM, I need to go round up puppies and get them bedded down for the night!

Wet Puppy Pix

There are several new ones on the puppy page on the website, mostly of Brother since he wasn't in the pictures (by his own choosing) a couple days ago.

By way of preamble, we had two days of pretty good rain and delightfully cooler weather, even though I couldn't do anything outside because it was raining... but I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth! The ground is soaked, there are big mud puddles everywhere and the grass is getting cut tomorrow, all of which means the pups had a blast!

Here are a couple kids... I think the pups are Brother (in the middle... easy to tell!) Charlie (on the right... he always looks a little "yellower" than the others,) Marco (on the left... he always looks a little whiter) and EITHER Elliott or Beckett (in the front... from a distance, it's hard to tell exactly how much black is still in the coat.)



This is Brother, full throttle



And I'm pretty sure this is Spider but it could be Lola


And because Caren accused me of selling her a Bloodhounddoodle since Elliott ALWAYS has his nose to the ground, here's his pretty face. Please note he is also at full throttle!

The Case of the Missing Street

I know any number of people read on my website that my address is a little hard to find and a good many folks think that is a fabrication. So here's what has just happened...
I order all my vaccines and much of my other dog stuff from a company in Iowa, Revival Animal Health, and I have for many years... even before I moved to Tennessee. They are good people to work with, reliable and have prices that are always reasonable. Last Tuesday evening I called and ordered vaccines. They shipped out Wednesday and were supposed to arrive Friday. When they weren't here by 6PM, I called Revival... since you CAN'T call Fed-X... and asked what was going on. I don't mess with vaccines... they either arrive on schedule or I don't accept them. The lady I spoke with called Fed-X... SHE has a phone number that gets through to a person... and then told me they couldn't deliver them to me because they couldn't find me. When I said that was impossible because they deliver out here, and not just to me, all the time, she went back to the Fed-X rep. Then the story changed to the box had probably been misloaded and was on the wrong truck. They would try to locate it and if they did, would either deliver them the next day (yeah, on a Saturday) or refrigerate the package over the weekend. Regardless, I told the lady I didn't want them and she totally understood and said she'd contact me Monday morning and get a new shipment out to me. Needless to say, the first box didn't show up Saturday or this morning. To make a long story short, I called the lady at Revival and since she was out to lunch, left my name, phone number and said "tell her it's about the vaccines that still aren't here." Apparently she takes a long lunch because she hadn't called me back 3-1/2 hours later. BUT when I got into the email account I use for company stuff... confirmations, receipts, shipping notification, etc... there was an email from the head of Customer Service. NOT Fed-X Customer Service, Revival's. He said he had been unable to reach me all day... which is pretty amazing since a number of other people had no problem and I had deliberately stayed off the computer so I wouldn't tie up the line (I'm on dial-up, remember.) But the gist of his email... and follow up phone call about an hour after I replied to the mail... was Fed-X had no idea where my street was. It wasn't on any map they had access to. Here's the thing: it's been hot and I don't function well in the heat but I'm pretty sure my street and the rest of the neighborhood has not been moved to the moon. What I don't get is how SUDDENLY Fed-X can't fine me. UPS I could understand; they've ALWAYS had a problem. It seems like the more of the farmland sold off and built on around me, the harder it is for these delivery companies even though there are no more streets, just the one I'm on. ANYWAY, the vaccines are supposed to go out OVERNIGHT tomorrow. Did you know Fed-X's 3 (or more) tiered delivery servies are TOTALLY separate from each other... different staff, different locations... but, apparently, the same maps.

What's One More!

Or, as she is now known, WOMbat


She arrived Friday, in the company of an 8-1/2 weeks old standard Poodle puppy who stayed till Saturday and is now living in southwest VA with my friend Penny. The Poodle guy and Wombat were the EXACT same shade of apricot! This is Penny's hubby with Cisco the Poodle and Spider the Whoodle.



This girl already knows her name and has had very little trouble fitting in with the Whoodle pups who are 4 weeks younger... and quite a bit smaller than she.



Wombat is a Goldendoodle backcross (from a Goldendoodle parent and a standard Poodle parent... actually, her dad is Cisco's dad as well.) She is for my Double Doodle program and is Ost's intended.

Spider


Several of you have noted how much bigger Spider is looking these days. It really is easier to see it in a photo than to picture it in your head when I say she has doubled her size and is just 1/2 pound less than Lola and only 3/4 pound under Remy and Brother. She is, obviously, as healthy as a horse
and is looking for a home!

New Weights

Okay, here are the new weights for this gang...

Elliott (Jack) ___ 11 ___ (was 6.5 four weeks ago)
Beckett (Molasses) ___ 9.75 ___(5.5)
Marco ___ 9.50 ___ (5)
Charlie (Eastwood) ___ 8.5 ___ (4.5)
Brother ___ 7.5 ___ (4.25)
Remy (Dora) ___ 7.5 ___ (4)
Lola (Lolly) ___ 7.25 ___ (3.35)
Spider ___ 6.75 ___ (2.75)

Really good decision
Moving the pups into the dog room was a wonderful decision on my part. They have SOOO much more room to play in there that they don't need to be out loose... and tearing up everything... in the house. And I don't have to go around hiding all the electrical cords several times a day. Plus, when they get up and start rumbling in the morning, I sleep through it... well, almost. And another plus, they can play out on the deck once the shade reaches it. Right now, they've been out of the pen for about 45 minutes and most of them are sleeping in the doorway or just outside on the deck. A couple are still moving about but the temp is around 95 (not factoring in the heat index) and they're pretty much done in. The last plus is they have finally discovered splashing-the-water-out-of-the-waterbowl-all-over-the-floor-
and-lying-down-in-it-to-cool-off and I don't have that wet puppy smell in the bedroom.

Emy is still pretending she never saw any of them before in her whole life.

Interesting

Yesterday, even with temps back to 95 (but low humidity so it felt like 95,) I decided to move the gang from my room into the dog room (which used to be know as the living room, back in the day when normal people lived here.) That meant I had to move a couple of the large rescues out (and into MY room) and more than double the size of their area because the whole point was to give the pups more room. And to get the puppy smell out of my room. (Look, ONE or two pups just don't make that big a mess or that many messes in a single day. But EIGHT?! Think about it!) Anyway, after about giving myself another heart attack... and having to cancel my usual Sunday night out with my son... I confined the little darlings to their new pen. This one is 6' by 10' and for right now, is sufficient for them to romp and play and poop with me having to change the papers only 3-4 times a day (rather than every 3-4 minutes!)

They did fairly well. Actually, they did somewhat better than the two adults I moved into the bedroom... it always amazes me how much initial resistance there is to that kind of change with adult dogs. Anyway, the biggest mess came when the pups discovered I'd replaced their ceramic water bowl with a larger plastic one. Big mistake on my part... puppies and plastic seem to be naturally drawn to each other. This is the first litter I've had who has gotten this old without discovering "Swimming in the Water Bowl." Well, they hadn't discover it before yesterday afternoon! So, this morning, they're back to the ceramic bowl. They were quiet most of the night... with the exception of an occasional howl (yes, HOWL) from a pup who woke up and found itself in a strange place. This morning, they were up and playing normally at 7 AM... I know 'cause I heard them but I did NOT go look!

And now, several hours later, they are out of the pen so I can clean it, and are having a great time proving THEY are smarter than I am since most of them have found the hallway back to the bedroom!

Another interesting thing... Emy and the relatives "live" in the tv/computer room which is right off the dog/living room. Grandmom and dad (Di and Brogue) and older sister, Cotton, made a beeline for the kids. EMY jumped up on the back of my chair, faced the wall and has not even LOOKED at them. She did such a great job raising this bunch but now that she's through, she's through! Which puts "paid" to my idea of having her help me with them if I take them all outside at the same time!

Last 3 Photos

Illinois bound as fast as he can get there! This is Marco.



And here's Lola, cautiously making her way toward Boulder.
(You never know what you going to step on in that icky green stuff!)



Brother found a hole and is sure his Pennsylvania family is down there somewhere.

Pups and a Rehome

Elliott, checking out every little spot in the grass!
He'll be living in Nashville where he plans on making a career in country something!



Moving to the San Francisco area is Charlie.
He's perfectly at home in the sun and apparently, loves the camera!


New Home Needed
I've just taken back a 55 pound, black, curly coated, neutered guy who is 3 years old and has been living with a couple kids and another dog. Circumstances have changed in his home AND he has a history of biting, twice. Both times were strangers who were on HIS property when he was unsupervised. He is at my vet's where he'll be staying for an evaluation period of at least 2 weeks. BUT I have to tell you, he was the perfect gentleman when I got him out of the crate and took him for a walk and he doesn't know me from Adam! Guess that should be Eve. (But his owner's name was Adam....) He sat by my side in the exam room, with his head in my lap. And my vet got right down on the floor and in his face when she first walked in the room without eliciting any negative response from him.

I am looking for someone with dog EXPERIENCE and I don't mean someone who has just had a couple pets... this has to be someone who knows what to look for and who speaks "dog."
Email me if you are interested.