Puppies a Pair

Last week I mentioned we got a couple of puppies for Niko to keep him occupied (and tired). 

Those puppies aren’t puppies any more, but we still call them that. They will be turning 8 years old on January 31. But they’re still our Puppies.

We got Amy and Bernadette from a friend who responsibly bred her Labradoodle female with a male Aussie. Momma got to have one litter, and then was spayed. (Brenda also breeds the most gorgeous Paints and Quarter horses you’ve ever seen - check out Thundercloud Paints and Quarter Horses on Facebook.)

We went to see them in April, when they were just 8 weeks old (lots of 8’s in this story!) We let them pick us out. Bernadette was the runt of the litter, but she was boss of the food dish. Amy just wanted to get along.

Bernadette on the left, Amy on the right

Not much has changed.

They came home to us at about 5 months, and proceeded to chew on everything - Niko’s tail, the walls in the laundry room. Toys weren’t enough - they had to chew. Thank goodness they grew out of it!

As they grew, they did their job keeping Niko busy and bushed in an exemplary way. When Amy was small, she would grab his tail and fly through the air behind him as he ran. They both thought it was a lot of fun, until she got to her full weight (about 35 lbs.), and then the game became a little too much for Niko. If she glommed onto his tail, he would sit down. His patience far outweighs hers. Eventually she called it quits. 

Bernadette and Amy, 6 months

With two puppies to take care of, Niko’s behavior changed. We live on a dirt road, and while it isn’t real busy, the cars and trucks that go by aren’t crawling - they’re moving right along.

Niko spent a lot of time digging holes under the fence to escape. If he couldn’t go over (six feet, yes!), he thought, I’ll just go under. He loved to visit with the bison across the road. Dangerous! (His middle name, he would say, with a wolfie grin.)

The puppies followed him over there one day. Niko was savvy about traffic, but the puppies are idiots. Traffic was a foreign thing to them. They started their life on a big farm, and then came to live with us, another largish farm with good fences so they can run free. But a hole under the fence was too big a temptation, and they were out! Now what?

Once we got everyone back and the fence hole repaired, I sat Niko down and explained to him that while he might like to be free and knew about cars and trucks, his little charges thought everything would stop for them. He needed to take that into consideration before escaping. If he got itchy feet and just had to leave, he had to make sure the puppies didn’t follow him. They were his responsibility; when they were outside together, they were in his care. What he was doing was a danger to Amy and Bernadette.

He sharply curtailed his escape maneuvers and never left the property with the puppies again.

Everyone sleeps on our bedroom. At some point, I think around 5 years old, they decided enough was enough, and if Niko could sleep in our room at night, so could they. We’d put them into the laundry room at bed time, and they would cry and whine until we let them out. The floor in our room looks like something out of Arabian Nights - there are dog beds everywhere.

The pack rides in the pickup

They also believe they MUST be on the couch with us in the evening. They have a perfectly good loveseat, but nooooo. We all have to crowd onto the couch. It’s…..cozy.

Cozy Puppies and Daddee’s hand

Cats are numero uno for me, but Niko and the Puppies are a special pack, and I’m glad we’re all in this together. Even when it’s a little too cozy on the couch.