03/07/2023
Today, all the puppies went on a "woods walk," where they have to follow us through various kinds of terrain, keep up, negotiate obstacles, solve problems, and not get lost.
On today's adventure, they had to go through ground cover over their heads, climb over logs, negotiate hills and gullies, deal with spiky blackberry plants, and figure out what to do with a small fish pond. Most of them went into the upper waterfall portion of the pond to play in water that was only knee deep to them. Some climbed down onto the first ledge of the pond itself where they could stand in water that came up above their bellies. And one went full-on swimming in the pond. All were able to find their way out, climbing up and over the various rocks and plants to get back to dry land.
Overall, the puppies had their feet on grass, dirt, wood chips, logs, rock, mulch, pebbles, tree roots, stumps, and pond plants. And they had a blast! A little unsure at first, they quickly got into the adventure and explored and tested their surroundings with typical puppy gusto. Every one of them had to solve problems and figure out what to do when they got left behind. And every one of them did great. It was a raging success.
Out of 17 puppies, we have one puppy who doesn't follow terribly well. This puppy gets engrossed in whatever flower, pine cone or stick grabs its attention, and gets left behind. It does not come to calls of "Puppy! Puppy! Puppy!" when distracted, like all the others do. This puppy's owner will have some recall work to do. All the other puppies followed very well with the exception of when the moms were with us, and then they all wanted to nurse on their mamas. But the mamas are done with that, and effectively taught the babies to back off. They were firm but loving. Summer actually put puppies' heads gently in her mouth to chill them out. It was rewarding to watch the mothers teach their own babies, and even the babies of the other litter.
One of the moms, Summer I think, regurgitated up her breakfast for all the puppies to eat, necessitating a brief snack break during the woods walk.
At one point, a puppy got fixated on playing with Gibbs, who is the sire of Splash's litter. Gibbs is an old man, and is not very tolerant of annoying toddlers. Gibbs was lying in a primo spot in deep grass, chewing on a ball -- a prized possession! -- and the one puppy kept running up on Gibbs and "attacking" him, jumping on him, biting him, and climbing on him. I watched this interaction very closely, in case Gibbs was to get too rough in correcting the puppy, as he doesn't put up with any crap from puppies. But while he growled menacingly, he didn't bare his teeth or take any action, and I think he secretly kind of liked the puppy's attempts to play, though he still maintained his typical "You kids get off my lawn!" old man attitude. :D
All in all, I think I had almost as much fun wrangling puppies as the puppies had. :)