Puppies Galore

Well, puppies keep you busy, that’s for sure. Summer of Puppies is in full swing, and I had multiple puppies at once this week. Thankfully, they ended up liking each other, but 2 puppies at once is kind of mass chaos. Leia went home yesterday though, so only one puppy now!

Meet Fig:

8 weeks old and quite opinionated! Leia has been such a nice, polite houseguest – Fig cannot say the same. Fig is a handful, she’s very active, confident, independent, curious and already a teeny tiny bitch. And she is LITTLE, I forget how little border collie puppies can be. I imagine she’ll grow up to be ‘normal sized’ (around 19 inches), but right now she’s so tiny and delicate … and has no issues taking on full grown adult dogs and leaping off my (very high) bed. She thinks she can take on the world, which may be true.

Surprisingly, my dogs don’t mind her – they’re not playing with her, but she has no problem jumping all over them. They seem to recognize her as a border collie, as Leia never got that pass. I don’t expect that to last though, I have a hard time imagining Bright not putting the smack down on Fig eventually. But not yet, Fig has full puppy license and she’s taking total advantage of it.

Fig pretty much makes herself at home wherever she goes, not a worrier, that one. She’s outgoing and friendly, she likes a good cuddle and generally thinks all dogs will like her. However, the moment she met Pixel (VERY nice pyrshep) she tried to take her out. And Pixel is SO good with puppies and just loves to play and was being terrorized by this tiny 8 week old puppy. I haven’t seen Fig do that with any other dogs, but, yeah, tiny bitch. Fig does listen when being told off by strong dogs, but she can tell if they’re not going to back it up. Figgy is not going to take crap from anyone, I think – we’ll see how that goes. Ah, border collies.

She arrived Wednesday night, and Tammy took Thursday night until Friday night, but Tammy got sick so I took Fig back again. So she’s had a lot of new experiences this week. Yesterday we went over to Anne’s and she hung out with a bunch of new dogs and people, and today we went up to Brigands for herding and she got to meet sheep and go for walks in the big field. Busy puppy!

Tomorrow it’s back to classes though, so not all about Fig anymore. And this is not a puppy that will quietly be relaxing in an x-pen while I teach. For the one thing, she flips out when being confined. Screaming and biting and throwing herself against the crate or x-pen. However, she did figure out the crate in the car pretty quickly, where she’s surrounded by other dogs and crates and she’s good there. But at home I have yet to get her to relax in a crate or x-pen, she works herself into total hysteria. She is fine being outside though. Which is good as I think she has a UTI, she’s just been peeing A LOT. Or vaginitis or something, but she really can’t be loose in the house as she goes so often. She did sleep through the night on the bed a couple nights, but last night she was jumping off the bed and peed on the bed and was generally causing chaos.

So tonight she gets to be a crate by the bed … we’ll see how this goes. This might be ‘crate in another room’ instead. Poor little mite, but our options are limited at this point. She’s also not been a big eater, so we’ve moved to raw and she likes that better. So still dealing with the basic functions at this point, once we get these figured out it will be a lot easier for everyone.

With having multiple puppies and her not really being into food there hasn’t been any real training yet, she’s still just settling in. I’d love to use food to help her settle in, but even with a raw turkey neck she wouldn’t have anything to do with it if she was in an x-pen or crate. She will eat if I hand feed her or stand right next to her, and she does not want any cats trying to ‘help’!

She is a fun little thing though, she loves to play, loves to chase and tug and pounce, she’s one active little puppy. I imagine she’s going to be a lot of dog when she grows up. She hasn’t shown the least sign of self preservation, she takes a tumble and just rolls and comes out running. Unlike Leia, omg, the dramaqueen screams! Self preservation is an undervalued trait though, I’d like Fig to have more of it.

So the goal this week is to see about getting her in to the vet tomorrow about the UTI so we can start working on housebreaking, work on getting her to eat consistently and handle confinement in the house without throwing a full blown hysterical tantrum. Big goals!

In other news, I changed my dogs to a slightly different formula of the brand they had been eating for a while and they all ended up with diarrhea – not fun. So much for trying to ‘mix it up’, they’re going back to the old food. Haku is even fatter than ever after I figured out that when Leia would complain in her x-pen when the other dogs are eating Navarre would leave his food and Haku would go eat it. I’m slow on the uptake. SO FAT.

Haku tentatively has a herding debut with Carol up in Washington in August, an AKC trial, just Started courses, something he SHOULD be able to do. He was not showing this today when we went up to see how Carol and Haku would work together. He was being a total dork, refusing to lie down, not listening and acting like he had no skills whatsoever.

I was feeling discouraged that this plan was not going work, but the second time through he was better (but by no means GOOD). So I think if we can find a way to get them more practice together, I think it’s possible. So that’s the plan, my goal is to practice our basics and stop him from thinking everything is a drive, and as many times as we can get Carol and Haku together. Operation Herding Haku is on track, my goal is for him to have at least a few trials in what may his last competitive year. He’s nine now, and maybe he’ll be just fine when he’s 10, but our time is limited, I want him to have a chance to experience the full scope of herding ‘for real’. As much as he’s able to, with the skills that he has.

And Navarre was a total dork on sheep today, the puppy has more sheep sense than him (oh, the adorable baby stalking!). Good thing he’s so cute and cuddly. Though we’re getting towards fireworks, and these days out of the blue someone will set off one horribly loud firework at night randomly and he gets so upset. We’ve broken out the thundershirt and anti-anxiety supplements, they seem to help. Poor guy.

Weather has been nice the past week, but pretty much after 4th of July it’s unrelenting sun until at least mid-September. Time to settle in for the long summer, my least favorite time of the year.