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Farewell To Virgil Arbok



Virgil and Letty

Virgil leaves for his new home tonight.  He'll be living with a couple of adult dogs, a Dal girl & a Weim girl.  He's a very handsome fellow with a mind of his own.  He's not the lap sitting sort, but is friendly and brave - and a bit stubborn.  Fortunately he's a chow hound too and will do almost anything for food!

This weekend I will make the puppy pen smaller and dig out a couple of puppy crates as it's time for Letty & Lucas to eat in dog crates rather than from a communal bowl.  I'll wait a bit longer before I start crating them at night, since that would probably mean getting up with them at night and I'm not ready to do that yet!  By ten weeks they'll be sleeping in separate crates. 

Lots to be done with them this weekend too.  Separate car trips with visits to Petco or Chuck & Don's.  Leash walks through the neighborhood.  Finding some kids for them to interact with.  We'll also work on restraint exercises and begin teaching sit and down. They both know their names, and respond quickly to the high pitched "puppy puppy" call I use when I feed them, so we will also start working on recalls.

The adult Dals have been very good with the pups, so the pups will get more free time in the family room.  Josie sometimes get a bit boisterous and the pups dive under the dog bed to avoid her dancing feet, but for the most part it works just fine.   It's too hard to work on house training three, but Lucas & Letty will start learning house manners this weekend, since I can easily tuck one pup under each arm.  At least for now!  They're growing fast though!

No Blogging Today

Yesterday was immensely stressful.  No time or energy for blogging.  Hopefully the day goes better than yesterday did.

Fun With Puppies

Playing submissive for dad

An absolutely miserable day at the office, late getting out of work, and then caught up in rush hour traffic when I finally did hit the road.  Came home to Ron sneezing and coughing with another cold or allergies (it's hay fever season with the ragweed in all it's glory), a hairy house that did not get vacuumed or dusted last weekend, and a yard that needs mowing . . .

BUT, my puppies were glad to see me and are looking so good right now.  Love the personalities on both Lucas & Letty, and they are so CUTE.  Sent off an email to Robin to be sure she is coming for Virgil this weekend, as I'm looking forward to having fun with just my two pups.   And a three-day weekend!

Because Lucas will be staying with us until Jess's pups are placed, I need to start working with both Lucas and Letty.  Time to dig out a couple of small crates and start crate training, house training and all the fun stuff that goes with pups.  We're going for short leash walks every evening, and stacking a couple of times.  Started teaching the sit-for-a-cookie, but Letty is not particularly interested in treats.  Virgil however was delighted to learn that.

The pups are doing really well on their raw diet, but will get a couple of kibble meals this week.  I bought a bag of Pro Plan Selects Turkey & Barley and have some soaking in the refrigerator. Kibble must always be fed soaked and with lots of water when it's given to Dal puppies.  Am sure they will like it just fine, although clean up will not be nearly as neat and tidy as it is with raw-fed pups.

Finally got the paperwork off to AKC, using the "whole litter option", registering each puppy with it's name and owners.  AKC has a cash flow problem and one of the reasons is that people don't bother to send in their individual registration apps.  When the breeder registers a litter, each pup gets an application for individual registration, but many people don't bother to send them in.  The whole litter option insures that each pup is registered.  Lucas is now Paisley Choco Chip Ready For Broadway, a combination of both parents names.  Am pleased with the names for both Letty and Lucas, although they will always be Letty Arbok & Lucas Arbok to me!

And Then There Were Three

Not the three pictured here, Lucas, Sloan and Letty, but really like this picture that Ron got last week.  Weather and Sloan have departed for new homes and Virgil will be leaving soon.  It's been such fun!

Health checks went well and the pups got thorough exams - eyes, ears, mouths, throats, bites, patellas (knee caps), shoulders and hips (for normal range of motion), heart rate, respiration, etc. Have ever had such thorough puppy exams before.  The pups checked out well and behaved nicely.  A pen was set up for them in the exam room, which was so much easier than carrying them in and out one at a time.

On Saturday we went down to Rochester for BAER (hearing) testing and there were no surprises there.  We knew we had 4 bilateral and 1 unilateral hearing and the testing confirmed that.  Unis function just fine but have trouble locating the source of sounds. We were very pleased with the litter stats overall, as we had no patches or blues, excellent trim and some spectacular spotting.

Rosie drove up to meet us in Rochester and as expected she picked Weather as her puppy from the litter, allowing me to keep and place Sloan for her since I had a good home waiting for him. Reebok went home with Rosie too, so the house is getting quieter!

I had planned to keep the companion pups until 8 weeks, but because Tabitha is a stay at home mom there really was no reason to make her wait until the following weekend to pick up Sloan.  If she can raise pups as well as she raised little Simon, he'll turn out well!  Simon was a doll.  Sloan's name is now Lego and we hope to see him in the Rally ring and possibly Agility someday.

So that leaves Letty, Lucas & Virgil.  Robin is supposed to pick up Virgil next weekend, and Lucas will stay with me for a few more weeks, eventually going to live with Jess and Don.  In the meantime, I'll start working with Letty and Lucas, teaching them to sit, stand and walk on leash.  The sooner you start training a puppy the better, but mostly I'll just enjoy them!

Thanks to Rosie for allowing me to lease Reebok and breed her to Argus.  It was such fun!

Not to be forgotten, Argus and I did our usual dog park visit on Sunday where he made more new friends.  I had hoped that by playing with dogs at the dog park he would not be so determined to "meet" all the dogs we see on our walks.  Didn't work that way as he is more than ever convinced that he should meet and become friends with every dog!