Last Night it was very windy and Dallas is not a fan of the wind, so he decided he was going to spend the night on my bed. I actually love it when Dallas wants to snuggle with me, normally he is quite happy sleeping outside on the front porch but wind and fireworks and he is a momma's boy.
He decided that he wanted to go out early in the morning and of course woke up the puppies in the process. Even though it was still dark outside (normally they don't start waking me until the first rays of daylight start poking through). So I am groggy and tired, let the girls in as that is our ritual, they go in and feed the puppies while I finish up the puppies breakfast. Vegas has this down, run around to the kitchen gate as fast as possible before the puppies beat us to the gate. Well epic failure this morning.... & I do mean epic. I opened up the gate and it popped off its hinges and is hanging in my hand. It's dark, I am tired and puppies are flowing out of the gate like a river flooding. Vegas is trying to get in, puppies are trying to get out and I am trying to get the damn little gate back on its hinges while holding back the flood of puppies with the other hand. Finally I stopped the flow, Vegas got in and then the puppies decided they were on the wrong side of the gate at that point and wanted in with mom, so then I am shoveling them back over the gate to the other side. I managed to fumble the gate on it's hinges and realized that I REALLY needed a cup of coffee at that point and no I am not making this shit up, it truly is my life right now and even though it is a lot of work, I truly do love it.
We had another puppy visitor this morning and I had to head into the office for a couple of hours this afternoon, before rushing home and getting the big puppies to their temperament testing this evening. Christopher helped me load up the puppies into the crates in the van and off I went, while he stayed home with the little ones. Note on this - words from Christopher.. It's amazing how much easier it is to take care of 7 puppies, yes Christopher an average litter of 7 is a much more manageable amount of puppies.
The puppies were awesome in the car, they settled down immediately and I think there was only one puppy that cried a little bit but by the time I got to Mary's they were all quite content and happy. They hung out in the car, not a peep out of them. In past times, I remember having to have lots of helpers stay with the car so that neighbors wouldn't complain about the noise coming from my van as one puppy is pulled out and others had to stay in the van, not this time. They were the best.
So in the temperament test we take them to a place they have never been before. Only people that have never interacted with the pups work the test, that means taking them out of the crates, bringing them into the building - one at a time, doing the test, talking through the test and taking them back outside. We test how they react to a new person, do they go up to them, confident and happy, tail wagging or are they cowing in the corner. I will say there was absolutely no cowing with this group. Mary performs the following tests. Will they follow her. She puts them on their back and counts to see how fast they start struggling and then how fast do they recover from this and do they come into her lap and try to lick her or are they upset with the whole situation. Again they all forgave her very fast and she had her faced cleaned time and time again. She holds them up under their arms to see if they struggle - NOPE, I think a couple may have actually fallen asleep during this exercise. Will they go retrieve a piece of paper thrown to them - only two went and retrieved the paper, the rest were typical Berners in that you threw that piece of paper, go get it yourself. She bangs a pot to see how they react - all were the same look where the noise came from and go to investigate. Not one cowered or ran the other way....yeah! Drag a towel to see if they will try and catch it do they have prey drive... only a couple actually chased it, they looked and tried to play with it but not actually mouth it or try and kill the toy, again pretty chillaxing group of puppies. Last open an umbrella when they are not looking and see if they will react to it or go and investigate. They all looked at it, went up and sniffed it and walked away like ok so its an umbrella no big deal.
Overall this was the most consistent testing I think I have ever seen on any of my litters. Very relaxed easy going group of puppies. There are a couple that need to be placed into homes that are going to keep them busy, but none were fearful, all were happy and confident puppies with tails wagging and happy to be petted by complete strangers... All while I sat in the corner and kept my mouth shut so they didn't know I was there....I could not have been more proud of my babies tonight, they were AWESOME!!!!!
Afterwards everyone sat on the floor with all of them and had a big puppy party. We loaded them back in the van and they slept all the way home, again - Good Puppies! after getting into the house we had a huge ruckus of all the puppies playing, I am sure the big puppies were telling the little ones stories and the little ones were like go away, it was so much nicer without you big oafs.
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