Happy Birthday Hobbit

Yesterday was Hobbit's first birthday. It is hard to believe that our "little" puppy is now a year old. In honor of the occasion I made the above collage. You can see that he certainly isn't so little anymore but he is still our puppy at heart (and in deeds).

Because it had been about 8 years since I had a dog, I was very excited when we bought the house and decided that we could finally have a dog again. We had found a breeder that we liked and had even thought about buying a puppy a year earlier. While the family was excited about Hobbit's litter being born, I think that I was the most excited. It was so great to see and touch the puppies for the first time. Kids' excitement is contagious, so it was really neat to see how happy the kids were to see the puppies for the first time and to see that they were thinking that one of these puppies is going to be ours.

As time went by our enthusiasm built and we all couldn't wait to bring Hobbit home and then the day finally arrived and we did finally bring him home. As with having children, the world is new to them and you start to see the world through their eyes, so there were a whole new world of Hobbit firsts for us. He got to know his new home and family and became a celebrity in our neighborhood.

I don't know that there is any average puppy life to compare, but Hobbit certainly seemed to have his share of misfortune. He wasn't even six months old yet, when he got something stuck in one of his ears and he had to have it removed on a Saturday evening under full anesthisia. Another time I was out of town on a business trip and he had to be put under again to have surgery on an infection had developed. In November, Hobbit had his first cold/virus. It seemed that there had been a local epidemic. The vet suggested putting a scare on him and we were totally amazed that he kept it on. He usually tries to take off anything that you put on him. We live near a field that is often nice to walk dogs (and Hobbit has been walked there a lot!) but in the Summer we had several times where we had to remove ticks (not a whole lot of fun).

Hobbit is very people oriented. I know that many dogs are but when we take him for a walk or people come to visit us, he is always genuinely excited to see people. Going outside for him is a chance to see what people are out there and what dogs he can play with, a true adventure. Sometimes he gets a little too excited and I know that some people think, "oh no, here comes that crazy Hobbit" but he is a very loving dog and when you see how unfriendly and boring many other dogs are, it certainly wounldn't hurt anything if more dogs were like Hobbit.

Hobbit likes to play fetch, albeit, a little different than most dogs play it. On the weekends, he realizes that he can convince me to take him out and play some ball with him. Although I"m not always motivated to play ball with him, I quickly see how much fun he is having and can't help but be in a good mood.

Yesterday Hobbit had a visit from his sister Kira. The two of them play so well together, I think that she might even be his best friend from the dog world, although there are a couple of other younger dogs in the area that he plays nicely with. Kira brought him a nice toy alligator and we gave him a nice long raw-hide bone.

I've done several posts about Hobbit at this blog (feel free to browse through the archive at the very bottom of the site), I've also posted several pictures of him at Facebook, MySpace, and Flickr, so feel free to have a look. I have an album at Facebook of Hobbit pictures that should be view without joining. I believe that the album at MySpace is viewable without having to joing as well.

All in all Hobbits first year has been a wonderful experience for us. I'm looking forward to all the other coming years. Happy Birthday, Hobbit.

Beardie Walk for January 2009

Our breader had her first Beardie walk of 2009 on January 3rd. We've attended a few of these now and this one had the most Beardies so far. There were at least a dozen Beardies and their owners. There were several sibblings of Hobbit and a young brown and white puppy named Ian. It is hard to believe that Hobbit was once this little! There were several other Beardies that weren't from Hobbit's litter as well as one dog that wasn't a Beardie at all! Hobbit was preoccupied with his sister Toffy, he played with her most of the time and he hardly seemed to notice all the other dogs. Since all these Beardies together were so active, I wasn't able to take to many pictures. Maybe I can post some of that later (if I ever figure out how to edit the format of our video camera!). The top photo is of Ian. The next picture is of Hobbit with his sister Kira taken on a visit taken on December 28th.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Everyone! Merry Christmas to everyone celebrating the holiday and Happy Holidays to those that do not. Here is Hobbit getting into the spirit. I hope that everyone can spend some time with family, friends, and loved ones this holiday.

Beardie Walk in October

Beardie Walk- October 2008


Last weekend we attended another Beardie Walk. Anna and Sarah went with us this time. Hobbit's mom and an aunt were there, in addition to four of Hobbit's sisters, there was a cousin as well. Hobbit was the only male, but he didn't seem to mind being outnumbered. The weather was cooperative, we had a nice autumn day for the walk. Unlike the walk that was held back in July, this walk was open to all of the people that had bought puppies from our breeder and many of Hobbit's farther flung siblings didn't attend. It was a nice event and we look forward to the next meeting.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Happy Half-Birthday, Hobbit

Hobbit at six months

Happy Half-Birthday, Hobbit! Hobbit turned six months old yesterday. It is really hard to believe that this time has flown right by. Hobbit has become a part of the family and it is hard to imagine life without him. A lot has happened in those past six months.

Christine and I were so excited when Hobbit’s litter was born. Fortunately for us, we were able to see the puppies shortly afterwards. Then it wasn’t that long until the girls got to see the puppies. Christine and I have wanted a dog for a while and now we were close to getting one. Most of my life I have always had at least one, so it something seemed missing the last eight years when I didn’t have one. All the visits to the breeder were exciting. After the litter was born, it took us a little while to decide between the black and white male (Hobbit) and the brown and white male. Christine had a sense of relief after we decided on the black and white one.

The day finally came when we could pick him up and bring him home and Hobbit’s life with us began. Bringing him home was kind of like bringing Anna and Sarah home, certainly our family changed with each edition and Hobbit has brought a lot of changes. I don’t really know how long it took him to get used to his new home and family but my guess would be that it was probably within the first couple of days.

The weather was pretty lousy when we brought him home and he didn’t quite have the hang of the whole going to the bathroom outside thing. He must have thought that we were crazy to want to take him outside when it was raining! I was so glad when the accidents became less and less and finally he was house broken.

The weekend after we brought Hobbit home, he attended his first puppy class. The class was outside and the weather was rainy and awful. It was so interesting to see all the other puppies and Hobbit didn’t recognize his sister in the class, but had a blast playing with her anyways. Hobbit got so muddy at that class that he certainly didn’t look like the dog that we brought there. When we drove home, Christine joked about getting the wrong dog, and this really scared Sarah, as she started to believe that we might have really gotten the wrong dog!

Hobbit has been very social right from the beginning. Early on, he seemed to look at his walks as more of a chance to meet people and play with other dogs. You could tell that his in enthusiasm and energy seemed to annoy some of the older dogs. Of course there are some people that don’t like dogs, but I’m still often surprised when we’re off somewhere with him and how many people notice him. He has made friends with many of the dog owners around here and many of the neighbors.

My parents’ dog, Angus, was one of the main reasons that we decided to get a Bearded Collie. Angus was not good about riding in the car, which was one of the reasons that we wanted to make sure that Hobbit didn’t have that problem. Early on, Hobbit would ride with Christine to drop the girls off at kindergarten and to pick them up, so he got used to the car fairly quickly.

An early Saturday evening in July, Christine and Hobbit had returned from a walk, and he started howling and moving his head around. He had part of a stalk of wild wheat lodged up into his ear and was in pain. Christine took him to kind of an emergency room for animals. Hobbit had to be put under full anesthesia to get the thing removed. It was really sad seeing the poor guy all groggy but we were all relieved that he was ok. After that we’ve been very conscious of all the things in the nearby trail and fields.

It is really neat how excited he often is when I come home from work and when he first sees you in the morning. He always wants to say good morning to Anna and Sarah when they first come down in the morning.

Last weekend we took Hobbit with us on one day trip. We were walking along and we saw a black Lab puppy that was about the size that Hobbit was when we brought him home. That was one of those moments that sticks in your mind, because then Christine and I realized how much Hobbit had grown and how, even though he is still a puppy, he has matured. I remember that he was a little smaller than these Boston Terriers and it didn’t take him too long to outgrow them and now he was towering over this black Lab puppy!

I’ve really enjoyed these last months with Hobbit and am so glad that he is part of our family. I have posted several pictures of Hobbit at our MySpace and Facebook accounts. Feel free to add us as friends but please tell me a little bit about yourself if I don't know already know you (reminding me might not hurt as well). If you like the blog, feel free to add us to your rss feed or subscribe via email. We welcome your comments.

Puppy Reunion

Almost all the dogs!

We had a meeting of most of Hobbit's brothers and sisters yesterday. The breeder organized a nice walk through the fields near her home and then we had dinner at a nice restaurant.

Some of the nice landscape

We arrived to see most everyone outside of the breeder's home. We then proceeded on the walk and after we were off the street and in a place with some room everyone let their dog off the leash. The dogs were all so excited to see each other and their was so much running around and activity. I could not do it just to describe the all Beardie fur flowing as they gracefully played and ran around. Two of Hobbit's sisters weren't able to attend but puppies came from as far away as Switzerland and Munich! They had all grown so much since we had seen them all that last time.

Taking a short break

The fields contains corn, wheat, and some vineyards, a very nice landscape. There was plenty of room for the dogs to run around and play. We ran accross several people that were out walking, most of whom looked surprised to see all these dogs! There was also a wedding that had taken place and we saw bride and groom walk by. I overheard someone mention Mia and Benny's wedding picture (the puppies' parents). I thought that it would have made a nice picture to have the bride with all the dogs, but who knows, maybe she didn't like dogs. At any rate, I imgaine that she had something else on her mind!


Before going to the restuarant, we returned to our vehicles, and after the dogs had a chance to drink some water, we headed off. Because we parked in a different place than everyone else, we weren't with the main group when they came in. I'm sure that there were some rather surprised faces of people, seeing all these dogs come in. Those of you in America that don't know this already, it is very common over here for people to take dogs into restuarants and shops. Shops will have signs on the door when dogs aren't allowed inside. We had one room of the restuarant all to ourselves. On the walk and now in the restuarant there was the conversations that you would expect, comparing the dogs' development and swapping of stories. Throughout the walk and in the restuarant I was surprised at how little noise the dogs made, you would have thought that all those dogs would be barking like crazy, but I only heard a little growling when Hobbit and his brother were rough-housing, and even that was not very loud.

Hobbit and his family had a lot of fun. I know that the whole thing was a treat for Christine and I. I don't know when there will be another one of these things, but I know that we'll try to attend. If you like the blog, feel free to add us to your rss feed or subscribe via email. We welcome your comments.

Hobbit The Rock Star

Hobbit, scateboarder, puppy extrodonaire

Hobbit keeps growing as you would imagine. We hear comments all the time about how big he is getting and of course when you live with him you don’t notice the changes so much.

We’re phasing him into adult dog food. As the puppy food was getting near the bottom of the bag, we bought some adult dog food and are mixing the two together until the puppy food is gone. We’re also changed his feeding schedule from four to three times a day, with a wasa bread snack after his first walk of the morning. He is still inhaling his food (and any other food that you offer him). The breeder had said that he wouldn’t always eat so fast, I imagine that he’ll eventually slow down but he might be in doggy old age by then.

"Do I Know You?" courtesy of Spangles44

Christine has found a group of women that walk their dogs together once or twice a day and often joins them. One of the women is a semi-professional photographer that has taken some wonderful pictures of Hobbit and posted them on Flickr. Some of her pictures are amazing and it is interesting to read some of the comments that people leave. Three of the pictures post here are on Flickr.

"Have We Met? " courtesy of Spangles44

Hobbit is starting to lose his teeth. It started with five in the middle of last week and they seem to keep falling out. I hope that when all his adult teeth are in that he doesn’t bite so much. You have to feel sorry for him because he doesn’t have so many teeth left.

"Hobbit on the run" courtesy of Spangles44

don’t wish to jinx it but, it has been a while since he had an accident in the house, over a week anyways. Prior to that, it had been about a week or so since that had happened. We’re being very vigilant about taking him outside, so he has less opportunity to have accidents, but I think that he is also learning that we don’t want that in the house (I’m keeping my fingers crossed).

Hobbit has discovered that he really likes water. This discovery happened when Anna lured him into a kiddie pool of ours with some of his doggy treats. He first put in front paws and then discovered that he liked it so he put in the back too. Encouraged by some of the dogs in the walking group, he has gone into the creek a few times. He often returns from his walks very muddy (even when we manage to keep him from going into the creek).

I’m still amazed at how much people like him. Several of the neighbor kids get excited to see him. We went to a special service/cook out at our church yesterday and several people wanted to pet him while I was trying to find seats. When we take him for a walk it is always a big social thing for Hobbit, he wonders what people he’ll see and what dogs he’ll get to play with.

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Sarah Rides Her Bike And Hobbit Takes A Bath

Sarah and her bike June 2007 (with training wheels)

I had thought until yesterday that the biggest thing that I would talk about in the blog this time around was that Hobbit had his first bath, but then Sarah went and changed that yesterday when she decided to ride her bike without training wheels!


Saturday I did a lot of things with the girls’ bikes, including taking the training wheels off Sarah’s bike. I worked with Sarah for a couple of hours, holding onto her shoulders while she peddled. It got to the point that as soon as I would take my hands away that she would get excited and immediately fall over. Sarah can sometimes be a little stubborn (well, can’t we all) and she decided that she wanted to ride her bike on the trail near our house. I continued holding onto her shoulders for a good part of the trail and then when we got to a paved clearing I started to try to take my hands away at various intervals with similar results. After awhile, my back was getting sore from the bending that I had been doing and I wanted a break, I suggested going back home to take a break before we continued. She didn’t like the idea of taking a break and was very vocal about it. Christine and I talked about the situation and thought that maybe the bike was too heavy for Sarah to really learn to get her balance without the training wheels, because it was heavier than Anna’s bike (which was way bigger!). We decided that we might look for another lighter and bigger bike for her on eBay, as we had done to buy Anna’s bike.

Before going to church on Sunday, Sarah had said that she wanted to ride her bike to there. The idea of having to hold onto her shoulders the entire way there was something that I didn’t feel up to and part of the way would have been by too much traffic to worry about her riding her bike. We suggested that she could ride her Like A Bike but she of course wasn’t too keen on this idea! When she finally decided that she would do that, it was too late to ride to church, so I drove them there (over Sarah’s protest, I must admit).

Yesterday I was installing a cargo net in Christine’s car so that Hobbit can ride in the back of the car and got the girls’ bikes out so that they could play outside with them. Anna and Sarah had planned that Anna would try to help her get started with the bike. I heard Anna say something about helping her get started and explained that this was really too difficult for Anna to do and that I would be glad to work with Sarah again after finishing installing the net. I spent some time trying to figure out how to install the net and I looked up to see Sarah speeding by on her bike! I did a double take before realizing that she was riding by herself and without training wheels. In fact, she was riding as though she had been riding for months, if not years! I was so shocked, that she had managed this without Christine or I helping her. Christine later returned and I showed her Hobbit’s net, all the while wondering when Sarah would come back around on her bike and what Christine’s reaction would be. Christine walked to the nearby playground to retrieve the girls and I could hear her surprised voice shout when she noticed Sarah riding by herself. Christine immediately called Oma to give her the good news and I called Grandpa after the girls had gone to bed.

Christine took Hobbit to his weekly puppy meeting on Saturday. Hobbit spent much of the time playing with his sister. From the way that Christine talked, I think that he might have now realized that this was his sister. One of the instructors told Christine that the breeder had done a good job with the litter and Hobbit and his sister seemed ready for the puppy class and appeared to have a “here I am look at me” attitude as they tried various equipment at the facility (i.e. a see saw, tunnel, and etc.) while the other Beardie was more reluctant to try the equipment.

Later Saturday, the girls played in these plastic seashells fill with water. Anna was very keen on Hobbit joining them. She tried to bribe him with some doggy treats. He did end up putting his front paws in the pool to get the treats. I video tapped this. Before I can post the clip, I need to figure out how to get the video from our mini dvd camcorder to the computer, as my editing program doesn’t recognize the format of the video on the mini dvd.

A wet Hobbit after his first bath!

Sunday Christine and I gave Hobbit his first bath. We thought that it was encouraging that he had put his front paws in the kiddie pool the day before. He was very good in the tub. Christine gave him some liverwurst after he came out of the tub, so maybe we can train him to think that he gets liverwurst when he has a bath.

The picture of Sarah and her bike is from last Summer. I didn't have my camera out to take pictures of her and the bike without training wheels yet. In the picture of Hobbit you can see that he is still a little wet from his bath. The pictures of the girls and Hobbit was taken shortly after the girls had woken up on Sunday, so they're still in their pajamas. If you like the blog, feel free to add us to your rss feed or subscribe via email. We welcome your comments.

Here are some other posts that you might like to read...
• Anna Rides Her Bike
• Carnival
• How We Met
• Our Wedding

Hobbit Goes to His First Puppy Class

We’re coming out of one of those strange April weekends, weatherwise that is. Saturday was very wet and muddy and Sunday was one of those almost summer like days.

We took Hobbit to his first puppy class on Saturday. I went in with my expectations set too high I’m afraid. Since the puppy meeting part of it is outside, it is dependent upon the weather, by the end of the class/meeting there were several muddy puppies. The first session was more of a get acquainted session, so that they had a chance to socialize with some other puppies. I figured that that there would be the usual introduction stuff in this session, but I was also hoping to come away with some answers to some of the problems that we’re currently facing. There were several periods where the puppies went leashless, and after the last time there were several muddy puppies (as would be expected).

There were probably 12 or 14 puppies there. Hobbit has a sister that is in this class and there is another Beardie from another litter there as well. It didn’t seem to me that he recognized his sister; he was probably too excited about playing with all the other puppies. The other Beardie is a brown and white one. While all the puppies weren’t all the same size and age but it did seem that many were similar in size to Hobbit. There was a small little black dog (I’m not sure of the breed) that was so much smaller than all the other puppies, its owner was trying very hard to make sure that it didn’t get run over or hurt by the other puppies (I’m sure that puppy’s owner was glad to get his puppy home safely and might have been wondering if such a class is a good thing or not). I’m sure that the socialization will be good for Hobbit, but I’m glad the package that we bought also includes some theory classes, and a couple of individual lessons in addition to the puppy meetings.

Driving home, Sarah expressed concern that we took the wrong dog home. I have to admit that he looked a lot different than when we brought him there. Because there were several black and with dogs (especially Hobbit’s sister) it was possible that we did grab the wrong one. Christine explained to Sarah that we were familiar with his markings. As one of those throw away comments that we sometime make, Christine said that we could always check to see if he was really a “he”. Sarah wanted us to check immediately! It wasn’t long after we got home that Sarah wanted to check. Sarah was relieved after hearing Christine confirm that he really was a “he”.

At the moment I’m a little frustrated with our potty training efforts. We have walked Hobbit an awful lot and he has spent a lot of time in our back yard, but still had a lot of accidents. We took Hobbit on a walk to pick the girls up from church yesterday, and while he did manage to pee by the church, he still had an accident as soon as he got inside the house. We haven’t been able to get him to take care of business on any or our walks yet. Since we live by several nice trails that we can walk him on, we would really rather walk him than for him to use the back yard to take care of business. In addition, we need to get the biting under control. I know that it is a phase, but I don’t want to see the girls get hurt when he is in one of his wild moments.

Sunday was nice enough that I was able to fire up the grill for the first time this year. We had a nice dinner on our patio. It was a day like much of our April was last year, which was a welcome change after the rain of Saturday. It was really hard to believe that it could rain like it did on Saturday and then be so nice on Sunday.

The Oma will be coming on Monday and staying with us for a couple of days. This will be her fist time to meet Hobbit. She has become very excited with us as time went by about getting our puppy. About a year ago when we first gave serious thought to getting a puppy, she had thought that it wasn’t a good idea, but not too long ago she had even offered to puppy sit for us, so that we could take a week’s vacation. She told the girls yesterday on the phone that she had some little gifts for them and Hobbit. So, you can see that she has come around to the idea of us having Hobbit. I think that now, it is even like having another grandkid. I’m sure that it will be fun.

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We Brought Our Puppy Home!

Somehow we all managed to get to the time where we could go to the breeder and pick up our puppy. The first puppy had been picked up on Wednesday and then the last of three families was leaving with their puppy when we arrived. We got the puppy orientation from the breeder and proceeded to drive home.

We were told that the breeder and one of her daughters took all of the puppies for a ride in their car, so that the puppies ride to their new homes would not be their first one. By German law dogs need to be restrained when traveling in cars, either within some sort of cage or by a harness. Since we’re going to start out with a harness, we need to take the puppy to the pet shop to make sure that it fits. Christine was holding him on the way home. He was kind of wiggly and ultimately buried his head under Christine’s arm closest to the door. It didn’t really seem as though he enjoyed the car ride too much. Fortunately for him, it wasn’t a very long drive.

We tried to take him outside right away so that he could take care of business. He wasn’t used to the leash and the rain seemed to deter him from peeing outside. We tried several times to get him to pee outside, but they were all unsuccessful and he did pee inside. Around 10:30 or so, I took him outside and he did finally pee outside (yeah!). I took him out again around 2 am and then again at 4:45 and we took him out a few other times since then. At the moment I have to say that he pees like a girl. I guess that it will be a little while before he hikes his leg like the other male dogs. He also hasn’t figured out yet that he should pooh outside.

It seems that it will take him a little bit of time to adjust to his sleeping crate. When we put him in it last night he howled like a coyote for a good (or should I say bad) half an hour. He also howled again when we put him back in again after his 2am walk. He made a variety of other noises that all let you know that he didn’t want to be in the crate. At least after the 2am walk, he didn’t complain nearly as long.

So what is our puppy’s name you might ask? Any ideas what we named him? How about, “He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named”, in honor or Harry Potter? After a lot of thought and discussions the name of our puppy is…

Hobbit. Named after those lovable creatures from Lord of the Rings (and the Hobbit, of course, Bilbo, Frodo, and so on).

It was so great to finally have our puppy home. It will probably take him a little bit of time to get used to his new house but he seems to be adjusting well. We're all looking forward to the big adventure or our first family dog and all the memories that will go with it.

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We Pick Up Our Puppy Today

The day has finally arrived, we pick up our puppy today! If you can’t tell, we’re all pretty excited around the Heron house to get our newest family member and can’t wait to finally have him home with us!

I’ve had at least one dog most of my life, except for about the last 8 years. As you might imagine, it has seemed pretty normal to have one around and I’m looking forward to having one again. Christine had a Dachshund for several years as a kid and she is looking forward to having a dog again as well. This will be Anna and Sarah’s first dog, so while they’re excited, they don’t really know what to expect and don’t have anything else to compare the experience to. I know that it going to be a lot of fun for them, so I’m looking forward to seeing the interaction between the kids and the puppy.

You might be wondering why we didn’t have a dog for so long? When we moved to Germany, we had an apartment on the third floor, and with the girls being born the first few years that we were here, it didn’t make sense to have to get a puppy (later on a dog) up and down all those stairs along with the girls. One of the reasons that we were excited about buying our house was that we planned to have a dog

We first looked a litter of Bearded Collie puppies last year, but we decided that Christine’s schedule at the time was not very compatible with a puppy and that we would wait for the next litter. Much of my life I had Great Pyreness and it was only later on that I was introduced to Bearded Collies when my mom decided to buy one. I was there when she picked out Angus. It was his personality and overall manner that made me want one now. Christine also had a chance to get to know him, so she could imagine having one as well. She used to call him “Der Aungus Hund”, which really stuck for me (especially when I hardly knew any German). When we first saw the puppies we were trying to decide between a black and white male (official name Kool Knob) and a brown and white male (official name Knick Knack). After a lot of thought and our second visit, we decided on the black and white one. The other male we were thinking about will be going to Switzerland.

I will be working for a few hours today and the girls will be going to kindergarten. We’ve made an appointment to pick our puppy up this afternoon. We’ll go through kind of a puppy orientation with the breeder and pick up a few things that we have ordered for our puppy from the breeder. One of the female puppies was picked up on Wednesday and in addition to us, there will be three other families picking up their puppies today.

Do you have a favorite or memorable pet? We’d love to hear about it. If you like the blog, feel free to add us to your rss feed or subscribe via email. We welcome your comments.

Puppy Visit Number 4

On Saturday we visited the puppies for the forth time. The best thing about the visit is that we made an appointment to pickup our puppy, so the next time that we see him, he will be coming home with us! The weather and temperature were nicer on Saturday, some of the puppies we outside most of our visit (of course some went in and out, while some slept at times, and so on). Overall the puppies were a lot more active than any of our other visits.

Anna has been scared of bigger dogs, and on Saturday something seemed to click and she spent most of the visit, with the breeders adult dogs and she was excited about not being scared of them. I think that she got used to them.

Christine took a couple of nice pictures of me with our puppy (can you tell I'm excited about bringing our puppy home?). Last week the breeder's daughters had made a slide show of the puppies and put in the breeder's website in addition to uploading it to YouTube. I'm embedding it in this post.




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Puppy Visit Number Three

In the last few days we went to an international dog show, Anna cooked for us, and we got to see the puppies again.

I've been to several dog shows in my life. When I was a kid, we managed to finish one dog (I saw we but it was mostly dad in the ring with our dog), so dog shows weren't new to me. Christine had been to a small one years ago with only a couple of breeds. This was the girls first dog show, and it didn't seem like they were that impressed. Standing around watching the dogs standing in the ring wasn't too exciting for them I'm afraid. They were impressed with a Newfoundland that they got to pet, though. We did buy a doggy bed for our living room, so we did manage to accomplish something. Actually it was an accomplishment getting the bed into my tiny car!

Yesterday evening we visited the puppies. They had grown a lot since we saw them on March 1st. They interacted with us and everyone had a blast. Anna wanted to take our puppy home. Sarah seemed a little stand-offish, maybe the puppies were too active for her and she didn't like how they'd try to nibble on your clothes. Sarah did get along with the breeders 3 adult Breadies very well. We're all looking forward to bringing our puppy home.

The cage/box that I wrote about earlier is intended for the puppy to sleep at night and it is in our bedroom. We bought the bed so that he can sleep in the living room in the day time. The box is collapsable but it made more sense to have a bed in the living room for the puppy to sleep in the day time.

Slowly everyone seems to be returning to health. Sarah still seems to have a little bit of a cold, but sometimes I think that it is for show.

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The Puppy Box Has Arrived

Anna did her first sleep over at a friend's house. Her friend lives on a nearby farm, so she had a blast with their pony and all. She had so much fun she didn't want to come back home.


We still struggle with illness. For the last few weeks everyone has been ill at one time or another (except for me) and when it seemed that everyone was well again, Sarah had a fever again yesterday. Christine had her at the doctor's office yesterday and Sarah was fine when at the doctor's office. Christine is a little frustrated at the moment.

On Monday Christine picked up the puppy's new cage. The breeder suggested that the puppy sleep in the cage at night to help with the potty training. Christine called the breeder yesterday to make an appointment and found out that Krispy Kreme had been sick and on anti-biotics. As a result, the breeder doesn't want to have any visitors if they're sick, so it looks like we won't be seeing till next week sometime. The black and white puppy is Kool Knob and the brown and white one is Knick Knack. That's it for now.