The puppies are really getting rambunctious and difficult to keep track of these days!  They are always slipping into the woods or under a bush.  Luckily Ruth helps me track them down if needed, but they are getting obedient enough to come when called quite a bit.  After this morning’s run and kennel cleaning, all eight ran back into the kennel when I rang the breakfast bell, with zero stragglers.

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P litter puppies in the ex-pen while I clean out their kennel

They’ve found the bird pen on their own and take great interest in it.  They would love to explore the woods, but I can’t risk having them wander too far with a large pack of coyotes close.  The neighbor says that the coyotes used to come up into our yard before we lived here, which is one of the reasons why we elected not to have a kennel outside.  Zoro does a good job of doing laps around the house barking and peeing on things to let them know to stay away.  I did see one a couple of weeks ago about a block away acting very disoriented, which in addition to the flood would make sense if my dog pack has displaced them from their normal trail.

But back to the puppies.  They love to play and bite and chew.  Everyone is healthy and fun.  I wish that I had more time to go through and label each of these photos individually, but I think that I got at least one of everyone.  They are all equally cute.

Shopping list for new owners: Puppy food (I feed Diamond, but can give you some to mix with whatever you pick), food and water dishes, Medium puppy collar (they are growing out of these already) and puppy leash, either a small crate (no smaller than 22 in. tall) or a larger crate with a wire insert, and puppy toys (I like small rope bones and hard rubber balls).  For those of you traveling a long distance by car, bring some old bath towels in case you want to hold the puppy on your lap and paper towels to clean up any messes.  Bottled water is also a good idea both for them to drink and to use with clean-up help.

Very important: purchase liquid de-wormer (available at any pet or farm store) and a children’s medicine syringe that you can get from a pharmacy.  Two or three days after taking the puppy home, you need to de-worm them again.  Being in the bird poop under the bushes, even though I will de-worm them again right before they go home, they will need it again.  And if you spend a lot of time outdoors and they have their mouths on things outside, once a month from then on out.

I have two videos this week, one indoors and one outdoors.  I am going to mess with individual crate and dead/live bird time this week.  Since I’m a one-man band, it will be tough to get good footage, so bear with me if it isn’t great or non-existant, plus with the holiday and having family in town, I won’t have time for everyone before next Wednesday.  I also have a brand new cap gun around here somewhere that I’ll pop off while they are messing with birds, so I’ll have to track that down.

Indoor video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx-4QvX41S8

Outdoor video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEdVOla8YDA