My Mom calls once a week and asks – “how are my grandpuppies doing? Have you found them super good homes? How many are you keeping Nancy!?”

Every week.

She knows how much I love my animals.

Well tomorrow starts the big transition. We have puppy owners arriving from out of state, they will spend the night and leave in the wee hours of the morning with their puppies.

The puppies are feeling ready to go now. They are wanting more. More time, more work, more knowledge, more everything, and it is a good time for them to meet their new people in their new homes.

While they will be teething on one level or another until 14 months of age, they are not as bitey as they were 3 weeks ago. They have gone through an important developmental stage with each other and their mama, with learning how to operate their jaws with more care. Puppies left with mama until about 9 weeks tend to have and exhibit more self control, less damage with their mouth on human bodies and personal objects, and to be easier to work with. I am seeing this already. When I go into the romper room to clean up and visit it doesn’t quite feel like a pit of piranhas any longer. Still appropriately mouthy, but I am no longer seeing my own blood. Win win.

Their digestive systems are also maturing. They are not defecating now until about 6:30-7:30am.

And they are growing, their frames are no longer small, and they are little chunks. Since their weigh in at 8 weeks of age I am almost certain they have all gained a pound or two. I am currently feeding 6-7lbs of food a day, please raw bones, plus goats milk, plus rewards for recalls in the yard (rfd complete meals, or HK complete meal clusters).

I am asked often if the puppies are called by their numbers or if we have names for them. Both actually. And now some of them have their for real names from their owners.

As for us, this has been their names for 2 plus months –

#1 male – Uno, One, Pocket

#2 male – Larry

#3 female – Tres, Roxanne

#4 male – Cuatro, G

#5 female – Cinco

#6 female – Seis

#7 female – Siete-Ocho, Peaches

When we get all of the owners new names I will list those as well.

Time to go outside and enjoy the sun – we had three days of too cold to go outside, then an 18° day with sun that felt glorious, then 40° yesterday which felt almost beachy, and another awesome day via Mother Nature.

Yesterday I also took the pups out for a two hour car ride, they did great and settled more quickly. I now have enough crates in the car to have 1 or 2 pups per crate, which will be more realistic. They are all wanting more space, and seem to settle easier this way.

Their recalls are awesome! Man oh man, when their first lessons start they are SO READY to learn, and stoked about it as well! No matter their real life names in the near future, this word phrase will always be their emergency recall word, and super strong!