Reprieve!

Well, this is my week of reprieve before I start getting ready for Trixie's pups. She's due to deliver @ April 11th - 14th.

It's not much of a break. This is my time to get accomplished everything that I've been neglecting to do. No, I haven't been procrastinating, I've been playing nursemaid to Abby. Her hip is doing much better and she's getting around pretty well. Every once in a while, I see her get up and it looks like she's trying to realign her hips before she gets going. I'll, most likely, take her back to the vet when I take Trixie to find out how many pups she'll be having. That will happen the end of next week.

I always get the vet to count the pups. One time I had a problem and after the first pup was born everything stopped and I had to take the mom and the newborn pup to the vet and have them 'induce labor'. That was a fun experience. NOT! I've had this running joke that if all the ones I'm expecting don't come out, I have to know at what point to 'pick the mom up and shake her, until they all do'. Yes, I'm kidding!

Anyway, I like to know how many to prepare for and I can also let future adoption families know, as well. I have a list of people wanting pups, so if you'd like to be considered and get on the list, let me know.

Trixie is still able to jump on the couch and the bed. She's even running around a bit. It's good that she's staying active. She's not playing with the others. During play time she sits next to me. I pet her, while the others are fetching toys, agility products, etc.

Holly is being a mess! She's very submissive but she's overly friendly to the older dogs. She wants to lick their faces and when they growl she lays down and rolls over, on their paws. That's upsetting them even more. Talk about invasion of personal space!

I've got to get Holly an agility trainer. I think that will help use up some of her energy and teach her some discipline. She's the sweetest dog but she doesn't like a harness at all and we're working on collars. I adopted her when she was 10 months old. I thought that was going to be easier for me. It was and wasn't. It depends on what you want or need her to do.

Speaking of collars...I'm still checking out bark control collars. I've purchased several different tools for inside and out. I've got a bark control product to put on the fence but I don't know if it's going to stop the barking at the 1st bark or if it's going to wait for what it considers 'excessive' barking. I need it to 'sound off' at the 1st bark.

I've found (2) different good indoor barking products. One of them you can manually push a button and it stops them. I can't wait for them to bark excessively. If I'm working and talking to a customer, it's got to stop my dogs immediately.

Stay tuned. I'm going to be an expert soon!