News, news, news!!!

Well, I missed last week’s update owing to being too busy – with dogs, puppies, kids, etc etc. It was a super busy weekend, with taking the pups to the vet, meeting one of our puppy families who drove in from North Bay to meet the puppies and finalize their choice, going to a junior youth party with my daughter, my son’s soccer tournament on Sunday, and then taking in the last half of the Canadian Doodle Puppies' Doodle Romp with Phoenix (who came to us from Linda) and the rest of the big dogs (and little black boy came along too!) 

So, here is all the NEWS!

First off, I am very very VERY pleased to say that Scarlett has a family!!!!! Mindy & Neil and their daughters live about an hour outside New York City. Their dog walker found Scarlett online as a playmate for their other dog, and we connected and things fell into place over the past week. So tomorrow (Saturday) we are going to all meet in Syracuse and transfer Scarlett to them. We will be sad that Scarlett is going to live so far away that it’s unlikely we’ll see her again, except in pictures, but happy that she has found the right family.

Second, Leo also has a home!!! Carmel lives right here in Ottawa so we’ll be sure to see Leo again at a Doodle Romp down the road. Leo will be going home either tonight or first thing tomorrow morning. He will have 4 (yes four!!!) cats to keep him company – so his new owner will take the time to introduce them to each other carefully so that Leo – and the cats – have time to get used to each other. I’m sure they’ll become good friends in time, as Leo is such a sweet boy.

Third, we have homes now for:

Red Boy (PJ) who will also be going home tonight, 

Cream Boy (Banjo) who will head to his new home in North Bay next weekend,

 and I think Cream Girl (our name for her is Pearl) might end up being reserved later today, by a family here in Ottawa. (Keep your fingers crossed!) That leaves just Black Boy (our name for him: Obsidian or Sid for short) in need of a home.

As you might have guessed, that also means that we intend to keep Red Girl, Topaz, as a future breeder. I say “Intend to keep” as we still need to verify whether she’ll be suitable. To explain that I need to back up a little bit.

We took the five puppies to the vet last Saturday for their first checkup and vaccination. They are all healthy and in good shape. The only glitch was that when he listened to Topaz’s heart, our vet said he detected a slight heart murmur. He said this particular type of murmur is not uncommon among young puppies and very often they outgrow it by 12 or 16 weeks of age. However, it means we need to delay our final decision about Topaz until then.

We have a guardian family pretty much lined up for Topaz. They visited us earlier this week and just loved her! If all works out, Topaz will have a kitty friend too!

They were disappointed to hear that she isn’t ready to go to them quite yet, as I won’t place her until I know we can use her as a breeder. So the plan is to have her re-evaluated on July 10 – just shy of 12 weeks old. If everything is fine, she’ll go to her family. Otherwise I will have to foster her out for the next 5 weeks while we are on our summer holiday and then re-evaluate once we’re back, at 17 weeks old. If she passes then – great! Otherwise she will be sold as a pet and I will retain Ariel (Leo & Scarlett’s sister who is currently being fostered at her dam’s house in Cornwall) as our fourth breeding Mama. I decided to do that instead of keeping Pearl, Topaz’s sister.

So this past Wednesday the four pet puppies – PJ, Banjo, Cream Girl Pearl and Black Boy Obsidian – all went to the vet a second time for neutering. The procedure went well and by the evening all the boys were as lively as usual! Cream Girl Pearl took a bit longer, but within 24 hours she, too, was up and about as though nothing had happened. Ah, the resilience of the very young!

If you know anyone who’s thinking of getting a puppy this summer, let them know that Black Boy (Obsidian) is available!! He is a super sweet pup, in some ways the best of this litter in my opinion. He is calm, cool, collected and confident – eager to play but not demanding, inquisitive but not prone to stray, active but not hyper, independent and just an all-around great guy!