Day 5 - Thinking about health and homes

Well, today my litter co-conspirator is leaving to put on a New Year's event in Joshua Tree, CA (and no, there is not just one Joshua Tree left, there's plenty - big, healthy ones grow in town). Without Yishai, these pups probably wouldn't be around. I knew I wanted to do it, but the actual drive down to Los Angeles, pack the dog on the plane, send her off to strangers, and wait thing . . . it was really tough on me. I keep pretending that I am a tough dog owner, but fact is, I wuv my dog. Yishai encouraged me throughout and drove down both to send her off and pick her up. It's wonderful to have someone who supports my endeavors like that.

Now that he's gone, I have two things to ponder - what to do about my puppies' future health and how to get them into the hands of stockmen.

Health

What to do, you ask? Keep them healthy, duh. Feed them nice food, love them, call it good, right? Yeah . . . no. What I'm talking about is vaccines. There is a dirty hippie side to my dog ownership that has to do with medicines. I lost my last dog after medicating the crap out of him and just decided that I would adopt the same philosophy I have with myself for Fury - which is . . . homeopathic unless traditional medicine is unavoidable. Fury is only vaccinated when I need a health certificate for flying. Instead, I use veterinary nosodes. They detox Rabies and other vaccinations while maintaining immunity. It's worked well for Fury, who's never even had kennel cough (and my last dog got that ALL THE TIME).

So I am tempted to administer nosodes instead of vaccines to the puppies. But, at the same time, I have to think about the future owners' wishes. Not everyone is as hippie-esque as me and this is one thing that could definitely affect puppy owners.

I am probably going to go the traditional route. Comments welcome.

Homes

So I have all kinds of people asking after my puppies these days, but not the specific homes I want. Three are spoken for, three are available. Nobody's been assigned a pup yet. Only one is going to a regular working home so far (and I am not counting myself/Yishai - we're hobbyists). I bred these puppies specifically for ranch work (not even trialling) and I have not exposed myself to these people yet. I did talk to the cattleman that works the field next to my climbing gym and he gave me some pointers. I submitted an ad to WorkingAussieSource.com and I guess I will be putting up flyers at feedstores and the sales barns around here. John also gave me a cattleman magazine to advertise in, but i think by then it will be too late.

I don't want to hold good homes an arms' length away - but I do want these puppies to have the best exposure to their purpose for living as possible. Even if I have to be really hands-on with a rancher who doesn't know dogs, that's fine. I have one of the best, if not the best, stockdog trainer in the country a thirty-minute drive from me.