Farmington Valley Golden Retrievers

Whew. What a weekend of activity we just had here in puppyville. I think the puppies are having withdrawal after all the people contact. They are expecting more hugs everyday, but now it’s just Barb and I until the weekend when the judges for the temperment testing come. I imagine all teachers and coaches can emphasize with us here. Every litter that you’re in the middle of seems special. With this being our first winter litter, there are a lot of firsts. Plus we never had the website before and the blog allows me to send information in a much more organized way to everyone. We also never had to work so hard at achieving a litter with all the special veterinary help we used. So this is a special group of pups.

Here is the parade of special visitors from this past weekend:

Despite the increasing amount of work, I can feel already the withdrawal pangs of a litter too soon to leave. So we will live in the moment as our Abby taught us, and enjoy every day that we have left.

I know everyone wants to see their pictures from the many friends we had visit this weekend. They will follow tomorrow. As a breeder I was impressed with something that happened late yesterday, that I would like to share with all of you. As everyone knows, the purpose of this website is to showcase the beauty of our dogs and the level of care and love that goes into their development. Another part though, is education of the public into the care of dogs in general, and our breed’s traits more specifically. Months ago when we were planning the sire for our gentle Emma, we looked for many positive traits that we wanted to strengthen in our line.

These traits included color, conformation, size, abscence of genetic illnesses, and mellow personality. We had heard of Mulder the Westminster winner and admired his looks. Show dogs by training though, usually have that extra little fire or spirit that sets one apart from another in the ring of gorgeous dogs. That works well in shows but maybe not so well for families. I remember our mentor Sydney, cautioning us when we were choosing the sire. If you look at the celebrities in our society disgracing the media pages, you can see what I mean. Lots of fluff and energy, but no substance. I had a great feeling though when I met Mulder and brought him from the Cape for his romantic encounter. But this has been on the back of my mind in a small way until yesterday.

One of our last visitors, Sue, is an elementary school teacher. She and her husband Bob got right into the pen to help them decide on their top three picks. She put all of the males on their backs.

This is one of the most important tests that Sydney and her folks will be doing this weekend when the puppies are tested. It reflects a pup’s submissiveness and gentle personality. All six of the males accepted this position with no hesitation. So When I saw that, I smiled inside and felt very good about our long ago decision in picking Mulder. I think that the judges coming this weekend will be surprised to find how uniformly gentle the pups are. So I will go out on a limb before the testing and claim that we have been blessed with six boys that will have the swagger and looks of John Wayne in his prime, but with the heart of Jimmy Stewart in “Its a Wonderful Life”.

I won’t go out on a limb with our little females to compare them to movie stars, but they certainly have Hollywood looks from my biased perspective. They also have ball retrieving interest as well as a little fire when pushed.

Of course everyone is best friends when it’s naptime.

And what an unmatchable Valentine’s gift one of them would make for that special him or her…

Good morning. I have wanted to add some new content to our web site that is still a surprise in the making. Recently I saw this great photo of a puppy in a flowery background that took my breath away. Of course I couldn’t just copy it with the laws being what they are, so I thought how difficult could it be to make my own. So yesterday, off I went to my favorite nursery with two of the pups in tow. I have a good relationship with the staff at Hinman’s in Canton and so I had lots of helpers. It was however the pups first adventure outside and so they were awestruck in the warmth of the greenhouse with all the new smells and colors. Now I have a better appreciation of how hard those photos with just the right poses and background are to achieve. I found out the shutter speed on my digital camera is way too slow. By the time the shutter snapped, the pups were already two adventures ahead of what I wanted to capture. Here are a few of my worst efforts, and one passable one. There were actually a few photos with no pups in them as they had both moved so fast. I just deleted those right away.

The final photo will be a surprise addition to the website in the future once Celeste and Dana and Karen (my website gods) help me with their considerable expertise.

I recently ordered some cookie cutters off the web in the shape of a golden retriever and a dog bone. I am not much one for baking, but I thought this can’t be too hard. A nice reward for all the visitors this weekend who are scheduled to visit. So after Barb pointed out the location in our kitchen of every utensil and ingredient I would need, I went to work. First I filled the dough in the shapes and put them on the plate. Barb said the cookies would spread with the heat a little, but I thought no problem. This is easy. As you can see from the first photo, my cookies looked like Eddie Murphy in his fat suit character.

So what’s a guy to do. I got out my power tools and cut the fat cookies into their shapes! This seemed to work ok except I only got about a dozen cookie bones and about five pounds of cuttings from the whole dough mix.

Our visitors yesterday seemed to enjoy the “bones”. Unfortunately, at the end of the day we heard a crash in the kitchen while we were entertaining the pups downstairs. Solo had pulled the plate of cookies onto the floor and the big dogs made quick work of the remaining bones. So today our visitors will only have the cuttings to enjoy if Barb will even let me serve them!

So we will add this to our list of misadventures to remember along with the many others already on file. Still after the end of a long day yesterday, when the pups were all settled down for bed, and we were reminiscing about the day’s nice company, it was all good. Even though neither of us got any of our scheduled work accomplished, it didn’t seem to matter. Today another day almost the same is scheduled for more company. Good thing the pups will be here only two more weeks, so we can get back to the rituals in our lives again, … or maybe not.

Week six is underway here in dogville and everyone was up early. For the second time Miss Orange managed to climb over the whelping box walls and stir up all her siblings. We took the inner railing off after the first escape but somehow she managed to stretch herself over anyway. At 3:30 AM I heard everyone squeaking and Emma jumped off our bed to see what was up with her children. No harm done, just that everyone thought it was time to start the day.

We have a full schedule of visitors for this weekend with friends and new owners starting this afternoon. Everyone got fed, watered, and held. Then it was weigh in, pedicure clipping for all those growing nails, and then first baths. The biggest males are now close to or over eight pounds while the females are ranging from five and a half to seven pounds.

This is our first winter litter so the pups haven’t gotten as dirty as when they are out in the grass and mud as with a summer litter. Still there is nothing quite as good smelling as a clean puppy, unless maybe a newborn baby! The pups did very well with this new experience, although they each quivered a bit with the hair drying. Afterwards everyone cuddled in a big fluffy pile and took a well deserved nap.

Then it was upstairs where I mentioned the word “walk” to the big dogs. You can see the chaos that gets ignited when I say that word. So then a few miles out in the very cold frosty morning and then back.

Hard to believe all this happened here before 8 AM this morning!

Now all that’s left on my list is the lemonade, and chocolate chip cookies to make for our scheduled guests. And of course hopefully an unscheduled nap somewhere along the way.

There are as many sleeping poses as there are pups. Instead of forming a big pile like weeks earlier, the individual pups still like to cuddle but on a smaller scale. Under the railing is a favorite spot as you have already seen. It is a riot to watch them as they occasionally twitch or squeak from some dream in their minds. Their world has just been limited to the box and patio so far so I don’t know how varied their inner thoughts are. When asleep they seem to be immune to the movements of their sibs and even if another pup climbs or drops onto them, they don’t budge.

I had a colleague come visit from the hospital with her husband yesterday. They have been thinking of adding a dog to their family in the future. Despite having had several bad experiences with dogs when she was a child, I think the calm nature of the puppies won her over. She did however have to get through the greetings of the bigger dogs upstairs to get to the puppies. Everyone was well behaved and she left smiling.