Hard to believe that it has been a year since Kassey's puppies were born!  What a night that was.  Kassey started labour at midnight and the first puppy was not born until 4 am.  And then at 8:30 when we had five puppies we cleaned everything up and started to rest up.  But what should happen at 9 am but out came BIG GREEN!  He was half grow up already so no wonder he took so long to come out!

It has been quite a year.  First we had to find the puppies GOOD homes, and if you look at the photos we have received from some of our homes, you know that a few of our puppies are doing GREAT!  We are still sad that Little Green left so early, but sometimes accidents happen.  And we know how fast these puppies are now that they are almost full grown. 

We continue to be amazed at how intelligent our Maggie is.  And her love of walks, other dogs, and all people is unsurpassed.  She can be sleeping on my feet one moment, and going 100 kph (or so it seems) if food is present, people come over, or walks are mentioned.  She is a bit taller than Kassey and Koko but is still as skinny as a rail.  We expect her to start filling out and be at adult weight by eighteen months. While she has a very soft mouth, and has a good nose for finding things, as for retrieving we just do not know.  She usually gets to whatever we are throwing first, but then she drops it and lets Kassey bring it back?!!!  (Is she smart or lazy?)

Well I look forward to our next year with our Three Chocolate Clan members, and hope that all our Puppy families are enjoying their Clan members!

Our 2011 litter is always going to be the one between the floods.  Yes, our basement flooded again this year.  We have moved all our life back up to one floor of the house, with the joy of now having not just two, but three dogs underfoot.  So we salvaged the dog food and will cope as best as we can.

The litter registrations were all wrapped up in July.  It was my first time using the on-line registration system with CKC.  As there was a postal strike on in June, I thought it would speed up the process.  So all went well except for purple girl, who defaulted to me as the owner.  Sent off the correction and just got the official document for her new owners.  So now I can get it to them and the 2011 litter will be pretty well wrapped up.

So our little girl is growing by leaps and bounds.  She has had all her vacinations for this year and now weighs 13 kg.  She is also loosing her baby teeth and getting those permanent ones.  There is hope yet for our winter boots!  Both Kassey and Koko were in puppy classes by 5 months, but poor Maggie is being left to learn from the old pros.  Perhaps soon we will get life re-organized and be able to take in some training.

Well the time sure has flown the past couple of weeks.  Kassey came home from Red Deer Gun Dogs.  After greeting Koko, she ran to the whelping/puppy room to see what was happening.  There was Maggie in her kennel.  After checking that out, Kassey checked out the rest of the house to see if there were any puppies hiding.  This was with Maggie chasing her, as she had been released from her kennel.

Kassey did pretty well at the training centre.  Dave sure had her sitting pretty for retrieves.  I tried it a couple of times here, but with the distraction of Maggie and Koko, it just did not work.  However, the one time I took her out on her own was just fine.  So we will have to come up with a new routine, so we can reaffirm the training. However there is no rush, as for now we are going to try to put some fat back on her.  Her teats dried up while she was away, but she is just skin and bones.  If she was a greyhound or a boxer she would be just right, but for a Labrador she is kind of skinny.

Maggie continues to tear up everything she can get her teeth into.  I am beginning to realize just how special Koko was as a puppy.  I can't remember her eating anything, although she was very fond of stealing socks and running all over the house with them and stuffed toys were always defluffed by her, a habit that we did eventually break her of.  Kassey's specialty was the cords behind the couch, and we are lucky she did not electrocute herself. She still loves to steal shoes but only to carry them to the far ends of the house.  Maggie however loves to eat them.  No shoe has been left unscathed.  The shoe companies love puppies like MAGGIE.

So Maggie is having a great time playing with Kassey.  And for walks at the Lake there is actually someone to run around in circles with.  As well Maggie has already become a seasoned water dog, by following Kassey out into the lake, and through the deeper puddles. Her sit is becoming pretty firm, but like Kassey's is totally dependent upon how much competition there is for the cookie. The summer looks to be a time of bonding, for our clan and our family.   

Maggie had a grand adventure during her fourth week.  She got to go on a sleepover.  So now she has a best friend, Daisy.  If you have happened to check out the Painted Light Photography website Blog, you will see a few pictures of Daisy.  They played so hard that Daisy's yowls were worn out by all the rough housing from Maggie's sharp little puppy teeth.  Maggie continues to grow by leaps and bounds, and I mean that literally as she seems to be all legs right now.  And is getting up on everything.  We have been a bit disappointed in her retrieving instinct.  She is a typical lab in the chewing, eating everything department, and seems to like to dig too.  However, her interest in thrown balls is to run after them, and then chew on them rather than bring them back.  Even Koko's best attempts to show Maggie how it is done elicit no "Now I get it" enlightenment in Maggie.  Will have to wait and see if it clicks in with age.

Koko got to spend her time at the Puppy Ranch.  This time was a first for us to use this facility.  I must admit it is always a bit stressful trying out a new place, but Koko was returned to us in prime condition.  She also got to meet some new dogs, that Hennie said she tolerated and let know when they had been in her space too long.  Got to love the old gal. 

Several interesting things happened this week.  Maggie had a great check-up.  Healthy as a puppy!  Weighs 18.5 lbs. 

At the lake, when I was taking Maggie and Koko for a walk, I decided to take a different path down to the water than the girls.  So not more than a minute later when I came out on the other side of the bush and asked Koko where Maggie was, she had no idea.  She was more interested in which way we were going to go next than where her granddaughter may have wandered off to.  When I went back through the bush where Koko had come down to the water and saw no sign of Maggie, needless to say I panicked.  Where was she?  Had she gone around the way I had, no.  Had she gone around and around? NO.  Oh boy I thought did an eagle or a seagull pick her up?  Nothing in the air!  How about a cyote?  No, even Koko would have barked at that. I yelled, and then YELLED.  NO MAGGIE.  Just some yelling back at me....I decided to walk back to the cabin and call in recruits.  ....And who should I find waiting for me there but Maggie.  Not worried at all, she had found her way around sand banks, and corners, and twists in the trails, back to the cabin all by herself.  I was SO HAPPY.

Maggie has continued to bond with her canine and human family. Or so I thought given that Maggie will share her food with Koko.  But given the above I am not sure Koko is bonding with Maggie. Well you can check out the pictures under "2011Kassey's Clan Updates".

So to make Maggie's life easier, we dropped Kassey off at Red Deer Gun Dogs last Saturday.  Dave's slogan is "Better Dogs, Better Companions, and certainly Better Hunting Buddies".  I was sure he would phone me sometime in the past week to come pick Kassey up as she was just missing home too much. 

I know I sure missed her.  The house is incredibly quiet without her around.  It has made me realize that Koko has come to depend upon Kassey to tell her what is happening when it is a voice command or something to bark about.  And it has been an interesting dynamic watching Koko bonding with this new "dog" in her life.  She is just not quite sure what to do with her.  There are certainly a few "that's my food and don't you think you are going to get it" growls, but then just too few to worry about them.  And she is quite okay with sharing her pillow with this new addition.

Maggie had a lot of firsts at the lake this past week.  Last weekend the ice started breaking up....I will post some pictures under, The Lake album.  This weekend there were lots of puddles to wade through, not new, but being a bit more confident Maggie was attempting to cross them on her own.  With some pretty funny face plants into the water.  She would have just been a wet girl, but then we met the Lake's supreme dog, who with one lift of her mighty paw, had poor little Maggie on her back.  It might not have been so bad, but it was right into a mudpuddle, so poor little girl was not only wet but also covered completely in mud.  Too bad we did not have our camera this weekend.  After we got over the original scare it was quite funny.  It took her an hour to dry off lying in the sun, and then we plunked her in the bathtub once we got home.  Still not sure we got all the sand out, but she sure does shine. 

Adjusting to a life with two adult dogs has left Maggie somewhat perplexed.  Especially as Mom has spent the whole week giving her muzzle shakes to stop her from nursing.

Maggie has also been a bit confused about where the right spot to go is.  She has been caught running between the back door and the nursery.  But last night she actually climbed over the baby gate on the nursery, ran down the hallway, into the backdoor hallway before she just could not hold it anymore.  Not too bad little girl, at least she was running in the right direction.  She has also been spending 3 to 4 hr at a time in her kennel without making any messes.  Very good little girl.

Feeding time is a bit of a challenge.  Maggie gets very excited when Koko's and Kassey's bowls get put down.  Koko let her know in no uncertain terms that there was no sharing out of her bowl, so Maggie stays back from that bowl.  Mom's bowl is not so lucky, and it is lucky to make it to the ground without Maggie knocking it over.  However that does give one time to set down her bowl and drag her over to it.  Why not do it the other way?  Well, Maggie eats so fast I think all three bowl would get knocked over.

But the most amazing change has overcome Koko.  She no longer sees this little puppy as a threat.  She will even share her pillow with Maggie.  And on walks you can even see them striding side by side. Mostly because neither of them can keep up with Kassey for too long.

Well, that's it folks.  All of Kassey's puppies have taken off with their forever families.  We are sad.  But as someone else said, we have just passed the smiles around. So perhaps we can spend some time and get our little girl truly house-broken, and enjoy that "puppy stage" that really only lasts a short while.

These were amazing puppies and our hope is that everyone who meets them will enjoy them.

We left Blue Boy at the airport, waiting to go to his forever home.  Hard to believe it is time to let them go already.  They are still so soft and cuddley. 

As Day 57 is also the puppies fourth round of deworming, we have divided them into two groups.  Blue, Purple and Magenta will wait until tomorrow (sent Blue's on the plane with him).  Little Green, Big Green, Red Girl, and Pink have had their pill today.  Hopefully it will be through their system by noon tomorrow and they will be great on their trips home.

And that is all for now. 

"The best laid plans of mice and men go oft astray" R. Burns

Well our carefully explained plans for tattoos versus microchips went astray today.  Last evening, our little Magenta took a tumble from the up to the down stairs.  We have no idea what happened.  I just saw something fall and then saw the puppy bounce at the bottom of the stairs.  When I picked her up she was pretty limp, but by the time I got her upstairs again, she walked over to the puppy pile and promptly went to sleep.....needless to say we have put a barrier up between the puppy pile and the railing.....not sure where she got through but....not going take the chance with another puppy.....

And the rest of the story is that she did seem dazed but no obvious bone broken or bleeding, so we waited until this morning to take her to the vet for a check up while the rest of the clan was getting their tattoos.  The vet advised that Magenta should probably not have any anesthetic today, just incase.  While we could have waited and done Magenta at another time, I just thought why put any of the puppies through an anesthetic.   So they were all micro-chipped instead.

I will give all the new puppy owners the tattoo number that they can use on their puppy should they want to tattoo them at some later date.  The microchip number will be their identifier and can be used through the CKC once they are registered to find them should they become lost.

And Magenta is again part of the puppy pile and they all seem fine.  They eat, they sleep, they wake up and go outside for pees, poos and play.  And then they come back inside and sleep some more.   Occassionly one of the puppies breaks free of the pile and the routine and tries out something different.  Today it was Pink.  While her brother and sisters were outside playing, she came inside with Grandma and Mom, and sat patiently waiting with them for a cookie.  (Now this is a little more complex than just a cookie, as each of them has their own kind.)  Then she went and had a sleep.  When everyone came in for lunch, and they went to sleep, she was outside playing.  And Kassey being the Great MOM that she is, was outside playing with her and watching over her.  But there we go, the puppies are learning independence from one another, that will help them adjust to their forever homes.  And that is what this eighth week is about in puppy development.