puppies and Gracie playing

This was the last day that we had all nine puppies together. Five have now gone off to their new homes. The last four go over the next week or so.

We sure hope they are not too lonely without all their brothers and sisters. Judging by the folks that picked them up, I think they are all going to be spoiled rotten, so I'm not worried at all!

I think Gracie is going to miss them more than me - I'm a bit over them by now. I want to go back to being the centre of attention!

She just loves playing with the little guys. Watch them here.

early morning, 5am

Here's who's waiting every morning for someone to get up and let them out to play. They are so cute, it's hard to resist them!

puppy training

Kay has been introducing all the pups to the basics of clicker training. The hardest part seems to be getting them to eat the tiny bits of hot dog from her hand. They don't know where that great smell is coming from!

Here is Purple ribbon puppy demonstrating how to follow the lure, sit, down and roll over. Puppies at this age can't really learn it all yet, but they are getting imprinted with the correct behaviours. At least we hope they are!

All the puppies are doing the training and all are very good at it. These are some smart dogs, my pups.

asleep

It gets so quiet when the pups finally fall asleep! After a riotous play period this morning, they finally dropped in their tracks.

Except for some, who like their mother, always keep an eye on what's happening.

puppies in the straw

Well, it's like a barnyard around here now. Kay and Neil went out and got a bale of straw today and covered the entire backyard. It was pretty muddy and awful before.

The pupsters think it is great and played in it for the longest time. Then they settled down and chewed on it for a while longer

Squiggle

Green

Yellow with Aqua

Pink (chewing on a piece of straw)

puppies in the sandbox

We have had torrential rain here for the last 3-4 days. Everything is muddy. Kay is losing her mind trying to keep up with 44 muddy paws everywhere.

Yesterday the rain stopped for a brief time and the pups headed out to the sandbox for playtime.

Neil and the pups

The puppies had staged a raid on the recycling bin. They found all sorts of fun toys, like milk bottles and yoghurt containers. You can see the evidence in the background of this video.

Neil went to check out what they were up to and they were delighted to see him.

Gracie loves the puppies

Gracie likes to keep an eye on all the pupsters. She spends hours with them, quite happily playing and wrestling. This was yesterday morning's play time (6am).

With Yellow ribbon girl.

With Pink ribbon girl.

Bitey-face with Purple ribbon girl.

Mobbed by all of them.

Here she is romping with them in the very small yard.

Gracie and the pups

The puppies are six weeks old now - just another two weeks to go and my life can get back to normal! Lucky I've got Gracie around to do some of the babysitting duties.

She actually seems to like them... a lot!

Here is a video of this morning's after-breakfast play session. Sorry it is a bit dark, but breakfast happens at 6am and the sun is only just coming up about then. I guess it's all orange because of the inside lights.

We have put it on You Tube, so you can bigify it to see a bit better. Tomorrow, Kay will have to get the proper video camera out and see if it does better than this.

Still, they are all very cute.

meet the pups

We finally got outside on a sunny day and snapped some portraits of the puppies at five weeks. We haven't given them names other than the colour of their ribbons.

So, may we introduce...

Green boy

Squiggle girl

White boy

Turquoise boy

Blue plaid boy

Yellow girl

Purple girl

Red girl

Pink girl

They quickly took to the grass and loved the larger space to stretch out and run.

Yellow zoomed back and forth - she couldn't stop!

puppies outside

We had a cold but sunny day yesterday and the pups got to spend a few hours outside in their new play area. They soon got the hang of exploring this larger space and seemed to enjoy it.

puppies all over the place

The puppies are getting way too big for the office these days. Imagine having nine young Airedales in such a small space! However, it is a bit too cold for them to spend the nights outside... so for the moment they are staying put.

They are having fun with some of my old toys now. I'm not keen at all to have to nurse them - those teeth are sharp. I do like to come in and steal their chicken necks though... very tasty.

just puppies