It's Dixie's Turn!

After four long months, all eight of Dixie's puppies have now found homes, hooray! Now we just need to find a place for Dixie! She deserves her own family to love.

I got some cute pictures of her yesterday playing with some new toys -

Dixie!

We've been trying to encourage Dixie's fetching skills. She will do it occasionally but she has to be in the right mood. Apparently the stars aligned this afternoon and she and Matt had a great game of fetch while I took pictures...

Only one puppy left!

Coco got adopted this week, so we're down to just one puppy left to be adopted - cute little Zoey!

Moving Along

I finally pried this photo from the cold dead grip of my dead-batteried camera - it's Maya with her new mom and dad - isn't she just the cutest with her little tongue? :-)


I've found homes for six puppies so far, with two left (plus Dixie). The two remaining puppies are each in a foster home now, so they can get more one-on-one attention and training.

Here's Zoey, who is being fostered by Diann in Fortuna (Diann also happens to operate a wonderful dog walking and pet sitting business called Walk That Dog, which I highly recommend) -


And here's Coco, who just went to a foster home in McKinleyville this morning -


I would love to get both of these girls into permanent homes as soon as possible so if you know anyone looking to add to their family, by all means please send them my way!

So we're puppy-less today here at my house for the first time in over three months. I miss their adorable exuberant puppy energy, but it's also a relief knowing that this project is coming to a close. It's been a fun challenge in some ways, and kind of a huge pain in other ways (mostly just in terms of the time it took away from my family and business - I feel like I have a *lot* of catching up to do).

And that brings me to my final task - finding a home for Dixie! She really deserves to find a place of her own after all she's been through. Unfortunately, at our house she isn't able to be fully integrated into family life because my two crotchety 12-year-old dogs don't care for her. She spends part of her days in the studio with me, part in the back yard with our younger dog Lupe (who gets along great with Dixie), and part kenneled. She really doesn't like being in the kennel now that there aren't any puppies to keep her company. Poor girl...

Puppy Update

Well, I had hoped to keep this blog updated with pics of puppies and their new families as they get adopted, but I have forgotten my camera too many times to mention, and the one time I remembered to snap a photo, my camera battery died and I can't find the charger so the photos are being held hostage until I can find that #%$* charger.

BUT - the good news is, pictures or no pictures, I've found homes for four more puppies since the first adoption I posted about more than a month ago. They are all doing well in their new homes and I'm so happy to be down to only three more puppies to go (plus Dixie). Of the three remaining puppies, two seemed to have a bit more of an alpha sassiness than I care to see, which was difficult for me to do much about since I can't really integrate them into my indoor family life because my two 12-year-old dogs are grumpy and don't like silly puppies bothering them, so I found some wonderful foster families and those two puppies are now in homes, where they are learning some manners in preparation for finding their permanent placements.

The eighth and final puppy has had quite a roller coaster journey this past week. She's my favorite one - very mellow and people-focused, not a jumper, just an all-around sweet girl. About a week ago, I found a fantastic foster home for her as well, then I took her to Petco on Saturday for an adoption event, and a family really liked her and wanted to take her home for a trial visit, which I allowed. Ultimately though, after two days, they decided that a young puppy really wasn't the right fit for their family, so they brought her back to me. I had a couple of promising leads on other homes, which I've diligently been pursuing for the past 24 hours, but those seem to have fizzled as well, so now I have to decide whether to put her back in her foster home or keep her here. I really wish she would just get adopted right away so she can stop getting juggled around so much - she's SO sweet, I know she's going to make some family really, really happy.

Here are some pictures of Juniper (that's the name her foster family gave her when they had her last week) - not great quality pics because I'm using my backup (crappy) camera and they were taken in our icky garage, but she's still so cute.

See her back there snuggled behind her mama?

Juniper is three months old and around 20 pounds. If you know anyone who might be interested in adopting her, please send them my way!

New Puppy Pics!

Tell me honestly - are these not the cutest, most photogenic puppies you have ever seen???










And I just noticed the other day what a dramatic color change they have undergone since they were newborns - they are SO much redder now, and they used to have black stripes down their backs - those are gone now, and some of them even kind of look like the black on their tails is fading. Isn't nature weird?

Dixie's puppies - soon after birth and now

Dixie Before & After

Dixie within days of giving birth, and Dixie today - hard to believe it's the same dog! Even her face has filled out so much...