Category: Puppies

This And That

I have now graduated to a cane. Ah yes., a cane. At first I thought that if Hugh Laurie can do it, then so can I, but I soon found that using a cane successfully truly was a challenge. Pain is a great motivator though and I soon found my rhythm and was getting around pretty well. So what’s the problem? I did too much. By noon I could feel my knee really hurting, and tonight, well, not so good.

A good friend of mine came to spend time with the babies today and we took them out and played with them. I am watching the pups carefully these days as I am trying to evaluate which of the two female pups would be best for our family. Anneliese is a strong, energetic pup, with a sweet nature and endless amounts of devotion. She is also hysterically funny.

Anita is a sweet, pup, slightly less energetic, but who loves to play with Greta. I have also noticed that she will go up to check out Fritz, but when he gets upset, she will back off and give him his personal space. She loves to curl up in your lap and she is a kisser. She loves to be held and knows her name.

In fact all the pups seem to know their names. I’m surprised by this, but pleasantly so. They also come running to the door when they hear the can opener grinding, or when they hear me open my bedroom door in the morning.

Life is so good right now, despite my knee. Every day is full of wonder as I watch my babies grow and change. Yes, life if good!

I’m Just Wondering…..

I had Anita out today, to play quite a bit. She is a real hoot. Greta was playing with her and the two of them rolled around, chased each other and had so much fun. I did too. I love watching Greta play with one of her babies. As I sat there watching, it sort of dawned on me, that although Greta is very good with all her babies and is a wonderful Mother, she actually acts like a puppy herself with Anita. Had I been more flexible I would have jumped up and gotten the video camera and would be boring you with a mother/daughter video.

However, I couldn’t do that, so I sat back and just watched. Anita didn’t chase Uncle Fritz, and she doesn’t bark like her sister, and she is happy to just play quietly. Mmmmmm……could this be the puppy I should keep? I have said that I need to keep the puppy that is the best fit for our family and perhaps Anita is it. Mmmmmm….stay tuned.

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For anyone wondering, Uncle Fritz is doing better accepting the pups. At least he did okay with Anita this morning. By this I don’t mean to say he was happily playing with her, but after she went back to the puppy room, he went and smelled everywhere that she had been and was accepting of it. Mmmmmm, maybe Anita is the one?

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It was VERY cold here today. I think the highest the temperature got was about 10 degrees F. The winds were also quite strong, at 42 miles an hour. I hope winter is making a brief stop in so we know she still exists, and hen leaves just as quickly. Perhaps if I were in better shape and my knee wasn’t wracked up I would want more snow and more cold, bug for now, I would be happy if it were spring.

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I was actually productive today. I refuse to allow this silly knee to keep me down. I did three loads of laundry, thoroughly cleaned the puppy room and cooked three meals! I’m quite proud. The puppy room is never easy as we take the pups out, put them into a children’s playpen and then literally take everything out of the room, swab the decks and put things back before putting the puppies back into their room. But we got it done and now the entire house smells fresh!

8 Weeks Old!!!

It’s hard to believe that the babies are now 8 weeks old! Bernie’s owner’s came up today to visit and we talked about and evaluated each pup.

Three of our pups have homes. Good homes, and we are thrilled with that. Anja is going to Paul and Stephanie in the next town to us, Angelika is going to Nancy and her husband in New York State and Arnie is going to Leslie and her family in Upstate New York. Yes, it makes me happy that they have found good homes where they will be loved and cherished.

Feb. 4 Anja 2
Anja

Feb. 4 Angelika
Angelika

Feb. 4 Arnie
Arnie

It appears that Anneliese will be the newest member of our family, but since we haven’t found a home yet for Anita, we will count her as a family member. Both of these girls are beautiful and sweet and I adore them. We had the two of them out playing in the family room for quite some time and they had a ball. I wish you could have seen them running around playing.

Feb. 4 Anneliese with Angelika
Anneliese

Feb. 4 Anita
Anita

The neatest thing is that they seem to know their names and they come when you call them. They also wag their tails with happiness.

It’s so nice to have such a great litter of happy, healthy and beautiful puppies.

Anneliese

It’s amazing how one puppy will crack you up. Recently, it has been Anneliese. She seems to find funny positions to get into, funny sounds to make and funny places to fall asleep. She makes me laugh. As you can see in the last photo she is asleep with all the others, but her leg is hanging off the little sofa in a funny way. as she is half on the sofa and half on the little doggy bed. Too, too funny.

Feb. 3 007 Anneliese

Feb. 3 Anneliese 008

Feb. 3 012

Life is good when you have a pack of puppies around!

Puppy Update

The pups are seven weeks old now. Greta loves them, and she likes knowing that they are being taken care of, but basically she looks upon this time as her chance to mold their personalities and not fill their bellies herself. Unless, of course, she is getting me to fill a plate of food for them!

In fact this will show you why Greta has given up nursing them. The pups are wonderful, sweet and a delight, but….they are also little parasites whenever Greta gets too close!

The Reason Greta is giving Up Nursing AMH

The puppies got over the fence today and we had to build a higher wall. Anneliese who is the smallest of the puppies, was the first one to vault the small fence, and once she laid her eyes on Uncle Fritz, she chased him around the kitchen table! What a hoot.

The One About Newspapers

I’ve decided that there is something in the scent of fresh newspapers that causes puppies to proceed to wee-wee and poop on them. Now although this is a good thing as far as house training a puppy goes, it is also rather maddening, when you are trying to keep a puppy room clean.

We went skiing today. It was cold and windy, but the snow conditions were awesome and we had a good time. We only skied until noon, and then came home to the puppies. I opened the door and I knew that my little cherubs had been working overtime decorating the newspapers in the puppy room.

So, I got out an old playpen and set it up in the kitchen, put the puppies in there, and then took everything out of the puppy room and washed it down. Once the floor had dried, I put down fresh newspaper, their toys and beds and then put them back in with a bowl of their food.

Now before they even had one bite of their lunch they all went around and wee-wee’d on the papers! I stood there watching, and decided to let them eat their food before I went in and changed the papers again, and it was a good thing I did. After lunch each one went to the papers and pooped!

After I got done cleaning up that, I sat down and played with the babies. They climbed on me, they chewed and licked and snuggled. It was a lot of fun.

They slept for a while, and I could see them as I stood in the kitchen working on dinner. Oh they are so sweet. Then they woke up and wanted their dinner and the cycle started all over again.

Did I mention we no longer bring our newspapers to be recycled? Now we go to the recycling center and get newspapers from them!

7 Weeks Old

This morning Hubby and I took Anneliese and Arnie out to play with their Mommy. They ran around for a while, but then Greta lay down and nursed them. The video below shows Arnie on the left and Anneliese on the right. Be sure to have your volume up because there is a surprise ending.

It was also a very busy day for the puppies with visitors. First my daughter Amanda brought her sister to see the pups. Allyson is 15 and a really sweet person. She is the daughter of my former husband. I enjoyed meeting her and I could see the resemblance between Mandy and her sister.

Jan. 28 Mandy and Anneliese 004 Jan. 28 003

While they were here we took pictures and played with all 5 pups. Emily (the Puppy Nanny), was also here and we somehow managed a two hour play period in the family room without one accident! Yay! It’s amazing to watch the puppies now. A month ago when Mandy was here the puppies were just eating and sleeping. Now they are so grown up and are “real” little dogs.

Jan. 28Anneliese 011
Anneliese
Jan. 28 Arnie008
Arnie

Mandy and Allyson left and Emily and I watched a DVD I made of the pups life from birth to 7 weeks. It’s about 35 minutes long. It was so much fun to watch the tiny puppies grow before our eyes!

Then Paul and Stephanie came. They are adopting Anja and they wanted to show Anja to Paul’s girlfriend Tracy and her daughter, Emily. We all sat in the puppy room with the pups and cuddled and played with them. I can tell that Paul and Stephanie are really looking forward to the day when Anja goes home with them. It makes me feel good to see them bonding. Anja is so perfect for them, and I am really happy!

After everyone left I made dinner and cleaned up the puppy room again (for about the 100th time today), and fed the little ones. They ate up a big dish of food, and then they all crawled into a bed and fell asleep.

Another day ends at Puppy Central!

Puppy Thoughts

Jan. 21 Mon and Arnie

Today the puppies changed, yet again. Today they wanted dry, crunchy food. How did I find this out? Well, I had Anneliese out in the kitchen running around, and she went over to Fritz and Greta’s dish and started to chow down on the dry food. I picked up their food, because I wanted her to try the dry puppy food I have, and she loved that! As did the rest of the puppies when I offered it to them.

So, besides having their dinner of crunchies and wet food mixed together, they also got dry food after. Talk about a group of happy puppies!

The other thing that Anneliese did today was chase after Uncle Fritz. The poor boy is so worried by the little puppy, and here he was running away from her in the kitchen, and there was little 4 pound Anneliese chasing after Fritz! Now I am going to have to try to get this on film because it is just too funny!

Anneliese simply loves Fritz though and she seems incredibly unafraid of his size. Greta watches, but she has not made any threatening gestures towards Fritz. I think eventually he will relax. Maybe once we are down to just one pup.

I was thinking about that today. The pups are going to be 7 weeks tomorrow. Most breeders kick the pups out at 8 weeks. I am choosing not to do this because I believe that their socialization skills become better developed, and looking at how small they are, and how much time Greta still spends with them, I simply cannot fathom letting them go at 8 weeks.

Yet, I know that time is running out, and soon their new owners will be coming to pick them up and take them to their new homes. Although it will be a really sad day for me, I feel good at the homes we have found for our babies. We have just one female left to find a home for, and I hope in the next week or so to find a good family for her.

The weekend of March 4th (Their 12 week birthday), will be a tough one for me.