Pup-Less, At Last

My first weekend without an extra dog. Nena has gone home, and the pups are all in their new homes.  Nope, that's not my current household - that would be too many dogs!  The picture was taken about 20 years ago and includes left to right Rob, his son Morris, Mo's mom Eloise, Rob's puppy grandson Sidney, Mo's son Edgrr, Rob's daughter Erin, and Rob's granddaughter Hilary. All but Hilary (who went to live in a pet home) were champions.  Rob, Mo, Eloise, and Sid lived their entire lives with me, and I miss them all.

The last pup departed on Friday, when the weather finally warmed up enough to ship her to Texas.  Summit/Abby was looking extremely good and it was tempting to keep her, but I'm really not ready for a puppy right now and my next pup has to be liver.  It was a very good litter, good structure with exceptionally nice dispositions.  Abby was such an easy puppy, quiet in a crate and riding in the car, super easy to housetrain, not a whiner and very self confident.  Hopefully the next pup I keep will have a personality like Abby's.

The basement is finally back to normal, whelping pen down, whelping box cleaned and put away, floor scrubbed, rugs back on the floor.  Max has his training area back and was thrilled when I put his tunnel down again - he ran back and forth through the tunnel chasing a tennis ball, and acting like a little kid at recess.

Laurie reports that Amery is currently in season.  Still don't know who I will breed her to next summer, but hopefully there will be a pup for me to keep.  She still needs to finish her health testing, hips, elbows, eyes and thyroid, but assuming she passes everything, she's next in line.  No pups in Paisleyland until then.

After weeks of incredibly cold weather that limited my dog walking, we finally had a warm up.  I've joined the DCA Distance Log Program, and am recording the miles the dogs and I walk each day.  Should have been doing that last year when we covered so much territory!  At the suggestion of a Dal owning friend, I downloaded MotionX GPS on my iPhone, and am getting the exact distances, average speed, and a map of the walk.  It would be fun to attach the phone to the dogs, who cover so much more territory than I do!  The program tells you every 5 minutes how far you have walked and what your speed is - which tends to make we walk faster.  It's like being in competition with yourself, and adds a dimension to walking.