Week 6 - 7/17/2016

Week 6 – The Puppy Menace. This title popped in my head during one of our outside play times as the puppies started to explore their backyard to its fullest potential. Usually they stick to the grassy areas and the patio, but now with age comes more confidence for bolder adventures and they ventured into our bushes and behind the pond (with Mango taking a trek through the jungle of canna and cattails to comeout somewhere in the middle of the waterfall area. (Wish we had our camera for that adventure!)

Steve is ALWAYS a puppy favorite (we named our green ground covering plant "Steve" from the Over the Hedge movie). He gets crawled on, chewed, dug around, pooped on by ALL of them, but somehow he survives the terrorizing puppies and comes back full and green for the next litter! Can't say all the plants get that happy ending.

The puppies had stimulation overload this weekend. We had our favorite puppy event- the Puppy Socialization Party, on Saturday. With temperatures over 110 at 6pm, we still mananged to have a record number of people at our puppy party this year! I think we had 32 people visit for almost 2 hours, several of them children from 5-17!

Even when the pups wanted to nap, there was usually someone picking them up and cuddling them as they slept. Our friends and families were troopers, not minding getting wet from the puppies dunk in the pond to keep cool and sitting on the ground to get up close to play with the pups! There were tunnels, a ramp, slide, water bottles, toys, balloons, pool noodle, tamborine, singing and moving kids toy, umbrella opening in front of them, cane, crutches, motorcycle helmet, scooter moving, scarf on someones head... all kinds of everyday objects and sounds and people to get these pups as bullet proof as we can for their new homes!

The pups slept so hard that night we didn't have to do our 9pm play time (we were pooped too so it was nice to turn into bed early!). It was a lot of fun having everyone over and we'd like to thank all those who showed up and played with our puppies- I'm sure you all had fun too!!! I can't wait to hear from everyone who their favorite puppy was- Nacho stood out as being a crowd pleaser, but I think it's because he stands out being all cute and fluffy and looking like an Ewok. Everyone loves the Ewoks (second Star Wars reference...)!

There will be more sounds and objects we'll introduce the puppies to over the next two weeks but the biggest will be taking a few car rides with the pups to get them used to driving home. They also will have their 7 week vet appointment next Friday as well. Kyra is spending more quality time with the puppies now that she's told them the milk bar is closed and they aren't so annoying trying to feed from her all the time. It allows her to do a couple warning growls and then lay down to play with them. It's always nice to see Kyra be able to relax and play with them after all the hard work she does. Zazu continues to be the fun big sister to run around and play with everyone. We discovered that both Buffy and Ketsy must be part kanagroo, as they both like to launch in the air like a pogo stick to get to your face to kiss you hello! Why crawl into your lap and climb up to your face to give you kisses when you can instantly bounce up there?!

Although we have to watch out or we might get more than kisses but also a bonk to our heads! All of the pups love people and that's one of the best part of their personalities. Even if they're play fighting with each other or really into that game of tug or chewing on a toy, they see you paying attention to them and their face lights up and their tail wags and they come over to you for some puppy kisses and hugs!!!

The Chicken Nugget litter (as always in order of appearance):