Love is muddy paw prints

First week of December and we are knee deep in mud and newly created streams. Mud, mud and  more mud…. The horses slide, the dogs slide, and the importance of four on the floor becomes obvious. The washing machine and the mop become intricately entwined in all our activities. Anara is unfazed by it all. She loves running, loves playing in the streams and doesn’t seem to mind being covered in mud from head to toe. She has a new friend, a black german shepherd named Keona.  She is content to spend hours wrestling, playing, tagging, chasing, and escaping from Keona. They wrestle, paw and mouth each other for hours. When they are exhausted, they each grab a genius leo ( a kong like jug you can fill with food) and settle down to chew until they fall asleep. Anara always likes to have contact and check on her pups after she comes back inside. After she sees them, she can then settle down and chew on her genius.

Kyrie stopped out to visit Anara and Keona today. The play session was pretty low key and nonchalant. Kyrie hung out while her  Mom (Michelle) trained Athena. Athena has been doing better. She has adjusted to being apart from other dogs. She is on a four hour potty schedule and seems to handle that very well. She is very good about picking the same spot to do her business in every day. She will go within the first few minutes of being outside and she is rewarded with play time and run around time. We never head back in right after she potties as we don’t want her to learn that going to the bathroom means the end of play time. She loves to investigate new smells but most of all she adores being recalled. She tucks her butt and races as fast as she can whenever she is called. Athena doesn’t seem to have the same fondness for mud and water as Anara. Athena will often look at her paws, shake them or otherwise appear somewhat disgusted at the textures under her feet. Michelle worked on her sit and down during the training session today.

The pups are three weeks old. They grunt and make bark like sounds. The Chatty Kathy pup is making more guttural noises and less whimpering. They consume more milk in a feeding but are less interested in eating as often. The Little Piggy pup is quite active and has started leaving the nest area to poop. Her eyes are open and she is experimenting with sounds. The Chatty Kathy pup opened her eyes briefly for a day but we haven’t seen them open since. Anara licks their faces often and continues to stimulate them to go to the bathroom. Soon they will be able to urinate and defecate without stimulation. They should get their milk teeth, start walking more and begin to be able to drink liquids from a shallow bowl in the upcoming days. Their sense of smell will become more acute with each passing day. Play becomes an important teacher as they learn to interact with each other and experiment with vocalizations and body postures. Handling and touching the puppies is important at this stage of development.