Happy Valentine's Day to you!

August and Chaco alongside Ocean and Shasta.  

"Happiness is a warm puppy", said one of those peanuts kids.  Was it Rerun or Linus?  I think it was Rerun in "I Want a Dog for Christmas Charlie Brown".  This Saturday our pups will get their final Parvo & Lepto immunizations and then by Tuesday we are free to roam and enroll in Kindergarten Puppy Training Classes!  Oh, the joy of getting out of the house.  Couple that with the much needing rain we are getting and we all have some serious cabin fever.  Now, mind you our clay rich soil has provided the boys and the pups with outrageous amounts of puddle splashing fun.  Our washer and dryer however are overworked trying to keep us supplied with clean towels.  We should have made a thrift store run on towels before getting puppies.

Bringing puppies into our lives has been a fun home education experience.  Learning about raw feeding, puppy training from the Monks of New Skete , studying their poops to make sure we are feeding them well and all the repetitive fun of trying to train them important skills, such as; sit, wait, kennel up, calm, quiet, speak and down.  Since they are not fully immunized yet and we are at swim team practice 5-6 days a week we must also be very careful about taking potty walks and being sure to clean their paws really well each time we do.  

Being able to be home most of the day, all week makes bringing home two puppies not as crazy as it could be.  Maybe we are just a little more crazy than usual.  It doesn't work for everyone and it is not easy.  We will have to work hard to give them individual time so they can have individual experiences with us and others too.  They have met lots of families on our swim team and already an adult lab whose owner works at the pool.  

Gotta go, they just woke up from a nap and should go, "potty!"