11th-21st July 2004 Well, again it’s been a while since my last journal entry, and again it’s been a busy time both with work and at home. I got off the boat on the 11th, and got back to Aberdeen. Dazzle picked me up from the airport and took me home for a few hours to see and catch up with the puppies before she had to take me back into Aberdeen again. When she arrived at the airport she had one of the pups that she wanted to keep with her so that I could spend a little more time with her. She asked me to pick one of the other pups for the journey back and I think I surprised her by picking one of the ones that she hadn’t considered. I picked one of the ones from Abbeys litter as I thought that we hadn’t really paid too much attention to them as Prue’s litter, being older, had started to develop distinct personalities already. I think that the pup I picked liked being with us, but wasn’t too thrilled with the motion of the car, but her puking on me just sealed the deal for me I think, and the journey back home convinced Dazzle ❗ So I think we have decided to keep three of the pups, two from Prue’s litter and the one from Abbey’s. We have also decided to go for a “spice” motif for their names this time so our three are: “Nutmeg” (Meg for short) who is a tri-colour, black, white and tan “Saffron” (Sassy for short) who is a light coloured merle with very blue eyes, and “Cinnamon”, a dark merle with lots of red about her face. We did have a bit of a crisis with Saffron. She managed to get her head stuck on the curved foot of a wrought iron plant holder in our kitchen. We were seriously worried at the time as she was screaming and the big dogs were howling but somehow I managed to bend the leg of the plant holder just enough to free her. Her tongue was cut badly where the metal leg had pressed it down against her own teeth, but she seems to be getting a lot better now. She was seriously shaken for a couple of days and very subdued, but she is getting back to being her “Sassy” self again now. The one lesson that we really learned is that NOTHING is puppy proof! We’re a little worried at the moment about “Chloe”. Chloe is a merle who is almost completely white, she had been one of our favourites early on, but she didn’t seem to be developing much of a personality to compare to the others. She has now become a “howler” and as she doesn’t seem to respond either positively or negatively to sound stimulus we are now wondering whether or not she is deaf. If we can’t find a really good and caring home for her we will keep her ourselves, which leads us to the question, how do you train a deaf dog??? And if we do keep her will we stick to “Chloe” of will we re-name her with another “spice” name? Of the other pups, we now have homes for three of them: “Alfie” a black and white male who is probably the pup that looks most like Prue, his mother. He’s going to a home where he’ll be a young partner to an older collie. “Riley” a male merle who’s going to be the little brother to a black German Shepherd. Riley was one pup that I really liked the makings of, but we could not keep as we didn’t want a male permanently in the mix at the moment! “Bonnie” a female merle who had face makings like a bandits mask is going to a farm where she be the fourth collie there so she’ll have lots of company with a family who love collies like us! So now we only have six to find more homes for, maybe only five depending on Chloe. So that’s a bit of a catch up on the pups. I had a course in the office for three days last week, I guess it was quite interesting, but now (particularly on my next trip off shore) I have to compile lots of paper-work and reports to finish it off. Monday and Tuesday this week I have another course and maybe some time in between discussing some programs tat I have been working on. This afternoon (Sunday) the folks came out for a visit, primarily to see how the pups were getting on, but we also went to visit some of Dazzles new friends, a couple who live nearby and who breed alpacas. Dazzle has done a lot of research and decided that breeding alpacas for their fleece’s would be a god use of our land in Colorado once we retire there. We had a wonderful time in the afternoon meeting and feeding the alpacas. Well, that’s a bit of a potted “catch up” from the last week or so. Hopefully it won’t be so long till my next update, but I for one won’t be too worried if it doesn’t have the trauma of the last little while! Hahaha
