Puppies doing great and . . . not so much.

Today we have a mixed bag. I guess that’s how breeding responsibly goes. First up, I wanted to share with you what Bekka says about the royal Hyper Piper:

“OK, so Little Miss Piper let herself out of her dogyard today while I was mowing one of the other yards. Was in the arena eating sheep poop, since the sheep have access to the arena... They like to use the A-frame for shade. So there are a couple sheep near her but she's eating poop and I'm not too worried since she had such a not-so-nice experience as a baby with Trace and BabyTrace.... (Trace is a sheep)

“So I keep mowing and look up again. Piper is gone... But there are some sheep moving kind of quickly. And I know what that means. Here comes the main flock over the hill with Little Miss Piper loping behind and turning them off the fence. They're moving quick but not 'slam-myself-into-the-fence' insanely.

“So I stop mowing. A puppy can get in a lot of trouble unsupervised with a flock of sheep, including the Icelandics. But they're still not going bonkers so I kind of chuckle as I walk aaaalll the way around house/barn to get to the arena. I kind of slow down and here she comes bringing the whole flock over the hill again, circling to head, stopping the entire flock, then *driving* them back the way they'd come, wearing to tuck the edges in when they start to loosen up.

“It's SO COOL and SO CALM that I almost turned around to go inside and get the camera. But I thought that might be irresponsible if things went south so I go to the arena gate. Little Miss Piper has brought the sheep back, and has them stopped at the A-frame with her a good 40' off watching.

“I call her off, she comes, then doesn't, then does. She comes out and gets mongo praise because no sheep died in the non-filming of this puppies journey of stock discovery!

“And did I say how COOL IT WAS???!!! “

My response to Bekka was “Of course.” Piper was obviously talented as a wee pup. I would expect NOTHING but reports like this. :P

And I got to wondering how Motzi was doing, so wrote to Alina. She gifted me with photos and a sweet write up!

 

I think Motzi looks a LOT like Fury. Look at that headshot – if that’s isn’t a male version of Fury, I don’t know what is. She definitely produced true to type!

And her letter:

We are doing fabulous, Moto really changed our lives for better and happier.

I smile while walking him every day and wonder how sad my life was without him.  Even my colleagues in the office noticed that I am happier.

Moto is the loveliest puppy I have ever met. He loves to kiss and be kissed.  He is sitting just next to me and destroying another toy...Boy, does he know how to destroy toys‼!  We are breaking all the records.   Every toy sold to us as non-destroyable has been destroyed ...sometimes after 15 minutes, sometimes after 1 day.  But he never touched a furniture, shoe or anything around the house.  We just buy him lots of toys.  I sometimes think, I should change his name to the“Destroyer”….

Mr. Moto, Motik, or just MO is 40lb and still growing.  He is about 20-21 inches high…I think…he was afraid of being measured.  He has absolutely gorgeous markings and is very, very handsome.  People everywhere are telling us how beautiful he is and these eyes!!!!

He is very smart, listens pretty well, I walk him a lot without a leash and he is perfect, but Sam is afraid to do it.  I am really his Alpha and he responds to me almost 100%....still working on full 100%.

He loves people…really all people, only occasionally he reacts to runners or bicycles.  Great playmate with kids; I had visitors for 2 weeks with 1 year old and 10 year old.  He was sharing cookies with one year old, playing squeaky…driving everyone crazy but, most of all, for the entire 2 weeks, Bart, the 10 year old was his buddy for everything.  Just amazing to watch.  I was…almost plain jealous…

I want you to know that I am still as excited about Mo as I was when you decided to ship him to us.  We love him very, very much and it seems it goes the other way as well.

Just few fact about him:

· Moto hates very hot and humid weather…just sits on the grass and refuses to go for a walk (even in the early morning when it’s bearable),

· he barks and howls when he hears sirens (one day, I had a really important work conference call and was not able to stop him, everybody heard him barking and howling…).

· Moto does not want to swim in the pool.  He runs around it and his main focus and enemy is the vacuum that moves at the bottom of the poll, he has never ending energy to chase it and barks and barks….  He is so fanny.  By mistake he jumped to the pool a couple of times and was beautifully swimming but immediately swam back to the "land"…he just prefers to be splashed.  I take him (carry him) into the water sometimes, but more to cool him that make him happy…he rather chase the moving underwater and occasionally splashing water vacuum.

· He begs for human food…this is Sam’s fault…he fed him under the table (So I don’t see it) and now we have a little monster.  He loves vanilla ice cream and blueberries…carrots and polish sausages…and everything else from the peoples table.

· He is playing all the time, has so much energy but at the end of the day collapses on the cold tiles and falls asleep.

· He is full of love and energy.

Pretty nice, yes? I talk to Patrick regularly and Reid is doing well, as is Emma. Rippa, well . . . dude, Rippa’s our dog. She’s awesome!

But here’s the sad news . . . it doesn’t look like Daca is working out in her new home. And trying to be sensitive to the situation, I will leave it at that. I had a lot of misgivings in placing her with them, but THEY said they were up for it and could handle it, their referrer said so, and Yishai supported trying it. Nothing huge occurred, but Daca’s not fitting in right.

I cannot tell you how sad this makes me. I feel like I’ve done wrong by her twice now – and it scares me to send her off to another home knowing that my track record is very, very bad. I’ll write more about behavior later – this is something that should be learned from, by me, by all involved, and by you vicarious readers so that you know what’s out there. I just don’t have the heart for it.

Daca will definitely not be coming back to live with us here at Tara. She and Rippa did not get along and I don’t believe that will be any easier now. Rippa is deep in her teenage phase of testing her mother’s will out (I still think Fury is too lenient with her, but she definitely rolls her when necessary) and finding her place. A puppy doing the same thing, the same sex, and mostly the same size (though Daca is more small than Rippa) while working through other problems is not cool. I am also not prepared to toss Daca out in a kennel and that’s her life. Yishai continually thinks through ways to keep her, including placing Rippa (who we all know would be easy to place), but when he says that I want to kill him. He’s a good man with a martyr’s heart, but I won’t let him give up his puppy just so we can keep Daca because of the problems she has.

The silver lining to this is that while I admit freely that when I made the choice to try out the Sibley’s, I caved to peer pressure while knowing in my gut it wasn’t right, a home that . . . in my gut IS right . . . came along a few days later. I contacted that home and there is still interest. If it works out, I’ll post more.

Poor little Daca-wi. The most bubbly, friendly, happy puppy of the litter and this is what happens to her? It’s hard to think of what the outcome for her might be, but I’m going to try to do what’s right for everyone. This is a majorly no-win situation.