Two Steps Forward One Step Back

The Dog Farm is thriving. The four Mayber dogs are happy because they're getting extra treats - to make up for the attention Annie and her brood have taken from them. Don't feel too badly for Jas, Maggie, Brandy and Pennie. They still get to the dog park every day and get lots of loving, just not so much one-on-one time.

Annie's puppies are a rolly-polly 12-days old now. Everyone is doing great.

When we got Annie from the puppy mill, the veterinarian told us not to overstimulate Annie with new experiences to quickly. Because of that, we've limited Show-and-Tell but last evening a neighbor came to visit the nursery. Annie retreated to under the table and watched from a distance as our friend lovingly held three of the puppies. I don't know if that's what caused today's change in behavior, but oh, dear. Bob went to check on Annie this morning when she started barking. She had taken one of the puppies out of the bed and he was lying on the floor. Bob returned the puppy to the bed and we thought everything was okay. I went to tell Annie bye before I left for work and she had taken another puppy out and he was on the floor. Thank goodness for my understanding Boss Lonnie who let me come home early for lunch to check on the puppies. Of course, the first thing I saw when I walked in was a completely empty dog bed! Where could eight puppies and a momma dog have gone? It was only a minute when I found that Annie had moved her entire family. Two puppies were tangled in a sheet, one was under a blanket and all of them were crying. As I put each puppy back into bed Annie was working just as hard to take them out. Chaos! My determination was greater than Annie's because I won and Annie gave up. All I can think of is that maybe Annie wasn't ready for the neighbor to hold her puppies last evening and maybe she thought she needed to move them away. (I'll check on the family every little bit until I know Annie's okay with things again.)

Last night was Paws-itive Partners' young people's group, Paws-itive Kids. We had twelve kids from age 7 to 16. The kids who attend are there because they love animals so every meeting is animal-themed. Last night we talked about puppy mills and how awful it is to raise dogs and puppies in that environment. I told them a little about Annie. On the less serious side, we had a lesson about wild animals and a wild animal sanctuary three hours from North Platte in Keensburg, Colorado. We had fun activities like animal trivia and snacks, of course. What a smart bunch of kids. I have to work really hard to keep ahead of them!

Friend Pat created a Paws-itive Partners facebook page and asked if I could put my dog blog on the facebook. Remember, I'm the one who didn't know what a blog was until Daughter Molly created this one for me. Unless someone else volunteers to come to my rescue, getting the dog blog on facebook will have to wait until Molly comes home to visit again. It's terrible to be so handicapped at the computer!

Thanks for your interest, comments and emails about life on the Dog Farm. :)