Catching up

Well I've been a bit behind with the puppy updates, but that is not for lack of progress on the pups. It was sunny and warm today, about 40. The pups spent all day on the deck, retiring to the heated calf hutch when it was time to nap. They liked this arrangement, more to see and more room. Someone cleared a large area of snow from the pond so there were skaters today. The pups watched the skaters as well as watching the big dogs play in the yard. We took a trip around the main yard. As usual Janis was the explorer and Aretha was the nose. Aretha also has it in for boots. As I walked she would race just in front of me and try to cut me off, biting my boots.

I have a wide aluminum barn shovel laying on the deck. They've made it into a see saw. Dusty and Aretha were jumping on it to make it slam down. There was a lot of thumping out there so I'm guessing others were involved as well. I keep putting a selection of toys on the deck, but they just move those all into the calf hutch, then play with the shovel.

They'll be 6 weeks on Saturday. Sunday we'll do our first look at structure, and I'll start figuring out which pup goes where. It is amazing how quickly they change from little shapeless, blind and deaf nursing machines to a playful bunch of pups, each with its own agenda.

Meanwhile the big dogs each gave me an early Christmas gift yesterday. We've not been able to work with the ice then snow. Yesterday I got out and each of them was very good. Fina got to do the farm work, gate sorting the 7 lambs off the ewes. I was pleasantly surprised to find she really liked the farm work. She had a good sense of where I wanted the sheep and took care of quite a bit on her own. Then we went up and did some driving through the deep snow. We were moving about 15 animals and it was hard to keep them all going forward. Fina tended to abandon any that were lagging too much, rather than work to keep them in the group. Song was better at the driving, quite determinedly making everyone stay the course. The most fun was Levi. He is just beginning to drive so I was surprised to find he really caught on to keeping the group together and moving forward straight. He'll hock sheep in the back that are not moving, and if anyone turns to face him he'll snap in their face. All this is done quite quietly, not racing or edgy. At one point the ewes in front had stopped and he was hocking the back sheep to no avail. So he launched himself right into the middle of the group, landing on their backs. It took some time for me to stop laughing.