The Rain is Here to Stay

It has been nearly a week and we have had rain every day, lots of rain... sometimes a Pacific NW misty type, but more often torrential downpours. And so far, I'm surviving quite well without the sun. It's amazing! Gray and ugly as it has been it is such a relief from the hot hot hot temperatures that I don't care! Our temps are going back into the 90s over the weekend and into next week (and probably higher after that) but we are supposed to continue with the rain for another 5-6 days.

Puppies leaving
Two are going home on Wednesday and two more over the weekend. So I have appointments every day next week.

Something that seems to be unclear... these pups are NOT housebroken and I am NOT trying  to housebreak them. First off, there are NINE of them. And second, just like with babies, each one reaches the physical and mental maturity level required for house training at a different time. When out of their pen, MOST of the pups will go back to it and potty on the newspapers. Those are the ones who are going to pick up the go-outside-to-do-my-business concept right away. The others will not be far behind.

Another thing... the pups are not going outside. First off, there are NINE of them and I am too old to be chasing nine puppies around the year when I want them back inside. And second, it's been too hot and now it's too wet. You'll see soon enough how much work goes into keeping ONE pup clean and dry. They like it outside,even on the deck, so they'll take to it quickly.

And one more thing... they are NOT lead trained. First off, ... you already know the song and dance.

Esther
has discovered ME! I've always been there but she accepted me as part of the environment. She  understood  from early on that her mom and other dogs were different beings than she, but I was just there.
The other day she began making eye contact with me... a HUGE step for any puppy... but particularly difficult for my pups because I am 6 feet tall. Yesterday, she started communicating with me. Today I wish she would stop! When I left her in the pen with The Nine this afternoon so I could go take my now routine nap, Esther was not happy. She whined and yodelled for an hour. Peri didn't help... she whined and whimpered back at her from the other end of the house (as usual.) Esther is such a normal puppy and is so well tolerated by her cousins, I may start calling then The Ten!

When It Rains

Had a sick dog yesterday. My 9 year old Goldendoodle, Keogh. Over the weekend, she started walking into things and by Sunday night, she was unwilling to move around on her own. I cleaned her eyes and examined them but couldn't see anything... she has one eye with a lot of scaring from dry eye, but neither was matted or mucousy. Could NOT get into my vet Monday... couldn't even get through on the phone until just before noon. The next appointment was for the 17th. So yesterday morning, once I got everyone situated, I took Keogh over as a "walk-in." Usually that means you sit and wait for a couple hours, longer if you want to see a specific vet. But, to my surprise, the parking lot was practically empty which stopped being a surprise when I walked in the door to a very dark waiting room. Our early morning severe storms had left them without power. They vets were taking care of whatever they could in just natural daylight, with no electrical equipment. So we got in right away. Jane couldn't see much wrong with Ke's eyes except for a slight infection in the eye itself. Usually she's really upbeat and just gives me a general list of possible bad to worse scenarios. But yesterday she was really not encouraging. She ruled out lepto because I put the dogs back on the vaccine a couple years ago. Her real concern was a fungus we have IN the ground in this area which is deadly and hard to diagnose. Keogh is a digger... she goes after the groundhogs and moles with a vengeance. A friend of mine lost a dog to this fungus a few years ago and it was a long, painful process before they even figured out what was wrong with him and put him down. I've been depressed ever since hearing one of the symptoms is eye infections. So, we're treating the eyes for the infection and Keogh is back to going outside without bumping into the door, but it's a waiting game to see if the treatments produce a long lasting effect or just help the symptoms.

So now, Keogh is being treated with 3 different meds...one three times a day and the other two, twice a day. Add that to what I'm doing with the pups and I feel like I'm Nurse Betty!

Speaking of rain

In less than 24 hours we made up most of our nearly 5 inch shortfall for the year. And it has continued to rain off and on all yesterday and today. Much of it came down in buckets. Luckily for me, I'm part way up the hill which is part way up another hill so I don't worry about flash flooding. Most of my immediate area is hills on hills and the drainage always (knock on wood!) seems to spread out before reaching bottom. I've never heard of anyone around here having a flood problem. HOWEVER! My car is one of those with automatic locks once the transmission is in drive and the wheels start rolling. I don't know how fast you have to be moving before the doors lock... no more than a couple miles at most. And yet, my road is so bad... and I'm not just whistling Dixie here... I am down my drive and off the hill, almost to the blacktop before the locks click. What's that? ONE mile an hour? Two? And even then, I'm still banging the undercarriage. Besides the enormous ruts, there are bricks and half bricks scattered all over along with small chunks of old pavement. At one time, the road was brick all the way to the top and at another it was paved. The hill is so steep, none of that has lasted and it has all washed down. It gets covered over with dirt and gravel over time, until heavy downpours wash it away and expose the rest. The road hasn't been graded in a while... my "neighbor" at the top of the hill who has a tractor and used to grade it occasionally has either moved or... I don't know what. It is so bad right now the teenagers who live above me have slowed to what THEY consider a crawl!

The good thing about the rain, besides ending the drought (at least temporarily,) is temps are down to normal... mid 80s... at least until the weekend. I can function again!

In Brief

If you've been to the website, you've seen that the issue with my host has been resolved. Have I mentioned, I hate computers?

Which reminds me... at midnight, the FBI is turning off the servers they've been using to protect the US from some bug or other for the last 6 months. If you haven't already, you can check your computer for infection by going to http://www.dns-ok.us. It takes about one second.

Esther and The Nine

This morning, I filled up the water bowl in The Nine's pen. Promptly, the two who are the worse about playing in it were in it. First, I warned one off... several times... loudly and then when she seemed to get the message and wandered, dripping wet. off then I had to contend with the second. A few minutes later, I put Esther in the pen with them. They played their usual good morning game of everyone surround the newby and bark at her until she started barking back at them, then they broke up into groups for wrestling. After a few minutes, Esther went to the water bowl and started splashing in it. SEVEN of The Nine stopped what they were doing and LOOKED AT ME. 

Well trained as I am, I yelled at her to stop.

Here We Go Again

It's Friday, right? Know how I can tell (now that summer tv has no schedule worth watching?) I'm having a computer problem. This one is JUST with the website host. I can't get on to edit files... which means I can't do anything on my site or any of the others I maintain. According to the host... who I have LOVED for 8-9-10 years... it is MY fault. Which I find really hard to believe since it was working fine Tuesday and early Wednesday (when I updated the puppy pictures.) I logged off for a couple hours and haven't been able to get back on since. I downloaded Firefox, which I like much better than IE anyway... just wasn't sure how long it was going to take to download on dial-up... and it is working fine (well, it will be as soon as I remember all the ins and outs!) And I've tried twice to download the latest adobe flashplayer... but both times it's made my computer freeze after 28%. Both changes were at the suggestion of the host's "support team." I'm still having a problem understanding how those two things just went out of wack JUST when I want on that particularly website and not for anything else. I HATE computers!

Emy's pups

Just one girl available now... Pony. I've had A LOT of inquiries, so many, it's getting hard to keep up with who's who... so I expect she'll be leaving with the rest of the family. A couple are staying into August.

Something everyone should remember... it is REALLY hard on a 3 months old puppy to be ripped away from his family and everything he's known. He is aware that everything is different... sights, sounds, smells, the taste of water, how people talk, the activity in his new home and probably the worse, no other dogs for back up (in most cases.) Be prepared for him to NOT want to run and play, often the pups don't even want to eat even when they are hungry. Lots of holding and petting and quiet time to just explore on his own... limit him to one room to start with... and time in his crate, away from the kids and all the goings on. Usually, the puppies perk up when they are taken outside. Just remember those short legs can really move fast so be sure he's in a secure place. You might want to let him drag his lead around so you can grab it without being right on top of him. Also, playing with a pup-friendly dog who has not been any place where he can pick up viruses/bacteria to expose YOUR pup to (like the dog park or even just walking around the neighborhood) will reassure your pup he's not the last of his kind in the world.

And one other thing... these pups, every one of them, like to sleep on their backs. Every time they're all down, at least two are belly up!.

New Pix

On the website are new pictures of MOST of the pups. One... dino... is currently missing a shot and another... black/white dog... is missing both. Their original photos were rather fuzzy, so I retook some after posting the rest. Now my web hostsite is doing maintenance and I can't get on there again until morning. In the meantime, here are two NOT going on the site, entitled:
When Stuffed Animals Attack:

I'm not happy about the dark red background and won't be using it again.

Esther
When E's mom went outside at 9 this morning, I put E in the pen with her nine cousins. And she's stayed there all day. Without complaint. Peri, on the other hand, has been barking and whining all evening. Seems like the pup had a curfew which she missed! I'm about to put her back with Peri and expect there'll be some splainin' to do.
Here are Esther's pictures from today. I LOVE the black and white. Sepia was an option which was also nice; I'll use it some other time.

Weights

So! The new scale finally arrived yesterday and last night, everyone was weighed. This is just for YOUR information since the formula I use to determine adult weight is not very accurate with medium size dogs. At 10 weeks, there is around a 3-1/2 pound difference between the largest, brown & tan dog, and the smallest, pink dino. The other two males and two of the girls are clustered together, while the other three females are toward the top.
Boys first:
brown & tan dog --- just a tad over 12 pounds
reindeer --- 9-1/2
gray unicorn --- 9
Darker females:
cream & gold dog --- 10 pounds
pink dino --- 8-1/2
teddy bear --- 9
Lighter females:
pink unicorn --- 9-1/2 pounds
black & white --- a tad over 11
brown pony --- a tad under 11

The gender line up is m/f/f/f/m/f/m/f/f. The 3 boys average 10.17# while the 6 girls average 9.99#
Over all, a very consistent litter in size as well as absolutely everything else!

Esther
weighed in at just under 5 pounds at 7 weeks.

And speaking of "the natural," she is now chasing the other pups around their pen. That's when she is not standing on all fours IN their water bowl. It is probably a good thing she is the only pup in her litter... she'd have the rest toeing the line from dawn to dusk!

And she gets the award for first to sleep alone all night. Peri kept climbing out of the puppy pen last night, so I locked her in a crate... and fell asleep. Every time I woke up, she AND the pup were sound asleep, so I just left them apart. About 6 this morning, I put Peri back in the pen and they both acted like no big deal.

They grow up so fast!

I'm Back!

Took my time this morning, made sure all the pups and dogs were in a good place and I had a big glass of cold water handy then called the first number on my list of possible isps. Hit the jackpot right away. The girl spoke English as a first language and it took only about 20 minutes to get signed up and set up. I still have to download their webpage accelerator although I'm not sure how much it will help. If I don't like it, I can go back to their regular dial up and save $4 a month. So far so good.

Thunderstorm
Had a couple big ones come through here during the night and early morning hours. Emy's pups have not heard thunder since they have gotten out of the baby stage... and they were not sure what to make of it. The pups had been playing out on the deck, where it was cooler than the house, as the wind picked up and thunder started rumbling. I made them come in before the rain started, but closed just the storm door so they could still watch outside. Some of them decided it was a good time to come in the room with me, while others stood up with paws on the windows and watched stuff blow around and lightning flash. When it got really loud and room shaking, several of them were frightened but one... brown/tan male... didn't even wake up. The interesting thing was the pups who were bothered by the noise all looked up at me and made eye contact. None of them ran TO me for protection or tried to hide. After the first storm passed, they all crashed in front of the fans. When the second storm came through, about an hour and a half later, they were pretty cool with it. It wasn't as intense, which may hae had something to do with that. I put them to bed and went into the bedroom to watch tv with that gang... it was about midnight... and didn't hear anything from the pups when the other storms came through. The first one was the worse... especially when the power went out toward the end of my whodunit and I started cursing up a storm of my own! But the power came back on within 5 minutes and PBS repeats their Masterpiece Mystery in the early morning hours, so I got to tune back in and see who dun it. (Which I had already figured out anyway.)

Friday, Saturday and Sunday we matched one all time record and then broke it the next two days. This morning has been gorgeous! The rain really cleared the air and brought the temperature down so the house was cool and stayed that way for hours. Today's high is supposed to be 95-97 with high humidity, which is more than 10 degrees above normal for us but practically a spring break from the weekend. The rest of the week is supposed to be more humidity and 92-99. I'm ready for winter... I'm still waiting for LAST winter!

Since you're tired of weather reports
let's talk about horses. I'll Have Another has been sold to a stud farm in Japan. He'll be junior stud to Roses in May who lives at the same farm and by all reports is very well cared for and appreciated. Since he's not going to be running any more, it is a good spot for a nice colt.