Today, the puppies met a new family - the Dodson's! I met Michael at his grandmother Elaine's memorial service two years ago. Elaine was a long-time member of our local Dalmatian club and of DCA. She was a breeder under the kennel name Gemini, and actively competed with her Dalmatians in tracking, road trial and many other sporting events. She was also a really sweet lady! Michael told me that he would really like to get a Dalmatian for his family that came down from Elaine's lines. Well, these puppies do! Their great great grandma and great great great grandpa were of Elaine's breeding. Plus they share a birthday with Michael and Ina's one year old son, Ezra! Michael heads up the canine unit for Homeland Security/TSA at Lambert St. Louis Airport. He also served in Iraq with Athos, his Belgian Malinois, an off leash explosive detection and combat tracking dog. The puppies entertained the family including daughters Makayla and Sienna. We all think it's a good fit even though one of the hoodlums nibbled a bit too vigorously on poor little Ezra's ear making him cry! He soon recovered and the puppies have now heard a baby cry. I have been suggesting to Cindy and Steven that they should come join us on the patio in the evening for wine and puppies, so tonight they took me up on the offer! They hadn't seen the puppies for more than a week and were sort of amazed at how much they had changed in terms of their activity level. I agree! In fact, when I went down a little before 9 to get the puppies out on the patio for their visit, I found a HUGE mess in the inside area. Someone - I am betting Lizzy - decided that the grass carpet would be a great item to pull up and drag around. Of course, under the carpet are puppy pee pads, which someone or someones decided would be excellent for shredding. EYEYIYIYIYI! What a mess! Plus there were a number of piles that puppies had tromped through. I scooted them all out the door and started clean up! When I saw Cindy and Steven coming down the stairs, I waved them in through the window and told them to enjoy the urchins while I cleaned up their mess! Wine definitely followed! Steven and Cindy did their usual excellent job of socializing/conditioning puppies. And it was a fun visit! The puppies again spent a lot of time outside today. I did airplane zooms with each puppy today - probably inspired by the low flying plane that buzzed the house this morning while they were all outside. They looked at me like I was a nut after the zoomies! Yesterday's nutty thing I did to them was to jump up and down 10 times while holding them. More WTH? looks from them for that! Today's meals were served up in ceramic dog bowls. Their weird pokey eating behaviors continue and they have not advanced to greater amounts of food. I'm going to stick with 2 cups for each of three meals until they are clean platters consistently. I attempted the ball pit wading pool with the puppies again today. All but one now think it's ok, and Lizzy even played in it for awhile. I bet by tomorrow they will all think it is fun! I did not get Lizzy, Maxwell or Sadie to the pool today as I'd planned. Imagine that! Tomorrow! They are more and more active and interactive daily. It's so fun to watch their personalities emerge. I continue to think they are all independent, curious, and people-oriented in their own ways. It's very interesting to watch them trying to figure out their internal pecking order though. You can see bits of that behavior in the videos below. Finally, I did put them all on the grooming table today opposite a big mirror so I can really look at them. It went pretty well for a first attempt. No photos. I will save that "joyful" experience to the end at 8 weeks! But we'll practice daily between now and then and continue to take photos of them just doing what they do naturally. Here are a couple photos and video clips of today's cuteness! The girls didn't get the memo that the noodles are for them to climb over, and the longer video is just typical of what the puppies do when they wake up from a nap. Enjoy! Until next time....
1 Comment
VALERIE A MARINO
9/9/2020 04:12:43 pm
Sadie told Rita in the first video! I love seeing Lizzy and Rita play...they are cuter everyday!!
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Toni LinstedtI like to keep a diary of the puppies as much for myself as for prospective puppy buyers and interested friends. Sadly my blogs for Lucy's and Baili's litters are no longer available due to legacy systems, but I saved them off as pdf's and was reviewing them last night. It was a good refresher on all kinds of things and brought back lots of good memories. Looking forward to Imagine memories too! Archives
January 2021
Categories |