Happy Birthday Puppies – Part 1

In the blink of an eye, Belle’s 8 puppies grew from tiny, dependant, wiggly little things to big, gentle, independent livestock guardian dogs…really, where does the time go?

 

In my post from last August, Belle is a Mom, I had pictures of the puppies right after they were born. However, reading back through my posts I found that I have not provided any pictures of the pups since then, and now that they are one year old and most have gone to new homes I thought it was about time for an update!

 

Watching the pups grow and develop their own personalities was an amazing thing to see.

Belle and the fur balls lived in the basement full time until they were big enough to begin venturing outside and once they did get out, the puppy wrangling never stopped.
Did you know that when you try to catch a puppy it thinks it’s a game and it then takes twice as long to round up the little bugger.

When the pups are first born, the Mom cleans up after them, meaning, she consumes whatever they eliminate. Now this may sound kind of gross but it is quite normal and allows the human mama, aka me, not to have to do any cleaning up, at least not for a while.

But at some point mom says enough is enough and human mama, again, me, does the heavy lifting.  Believe it or not, puppies do not come out of the womb house trained, and “go” wherever they darned well please.
Puppy pads have to be changed several times a day, bedding needs to be washed and heaven forbid, the little darlings should try not to walk thru their poo!

I know that some people don’t believe that dogs have personalities and emotions, but watching our guys interact with each other and with us, I don’t know how anyone could come to that conclusion.

Part of the job of raising puppies is finding them good permanent homes. It is important to make sure that the families the pups go to understand that Great Pyrs are outdoor Livestock Guardian Dogs.
They will not thrive if they are a house dog or if they have very little outside space. The job of a Pyr is to protect your livestock and/or property.  They are also nocturnal animals who sleep most of the day and bark and patrol all night.
Since we have had our Pyrs, we have had no livestock lost to predators and neither have our near neighbors.

Great Pyrs are amazing!

So without further ado, let me bring you up to date on the puppies that went to new homes.

Wriley was our first puppy to go to a new home.
I had been contacted by a gal who lives nearby that she was looking for a dog friend for her male Great Pyr, Wrigley.

Wrigley and Wriley

Erika had adopted her boy from a shelter and after she brought him home it quickly became obvious that he had been abused.
Wrigley would cower in the corner of the barn, would sometimes refuse to eat for days and was basically terrified all the time.  No matter how much time she spent with him or patience she showed him, he just could not trust her and come out of his shell.

It was, quite frankly, heartbreaking.

Our girl Wriley was a very confident and outgoing puppy and I thought if any of our pups could help this boy she could.

We went to Erika’s farm and almost immediately Wrigley began showing interest in Wriley.  He had not eaten for 3 days but once Wriley was there, he timidly began to eat.  He even let Wriley sit close to him, something that he had not let anybody do before.

Fast forward 10 months.
Wriley and Wrigley are inseparable. They sleep together, play together and even though he is still afraid of humans he wags his tail and bounces when Erica comes in to view.
Wrigley he has become the dog that he was meant to be.

A very happy ending!

Zoe was 2 months old when this picture was taken.
She went off to her new home in the Colorado mountains a couple of days later.

Zoe has lots of room to run and play with her new dog pals.

Here she is on HER new ranch where she is happy and well loved by her new family.

Annie’s new home is in south eastern Colorado where she is a member of a large family, both human and canine.
Her human mom, Donnell, raises Alaskan KleeKai dogs which to me look like small Huskies.
I have included a link to the web site at the end of this post, but beware, the puppies are just so cute you might want to take one home!

Annie is well loved and has become a member of the family.

You can read more about the Alaskan KleeKai at Donell’s link here Utahs Own KleeKai

Dear readers, As I wrote this post I realized it had grown way beyond the size I had originally intended.You will find that Part 2 will be posted soon.

Until next time,

Happy Trails!