The Pupsters are learning to spend the night in individual crates. This is a big step from hanging out with your buddy, to sleeping alone! Waaahhhhh!! The first night, I resorted to wearing shooting muffs. Nine puppies, all complaining at escalating decibel levels is not pleasing to the ears. Where one might eventually settle down, nine of them just churn the waters and keep it going. Using the mid-sized crates I had utiltized for the pointers was simply not going to work with this many puppies unless I wanted to build an addition, so off to the store I went and purchased 9 new puppy-sized crates.
I then added labels with their names, so that I can tell who is staying dry all night, etc. The first night I fed them too late and it came out the other end too early in the morning. ick. We've gotten it down to a better schedule now, with no food/water after 8 pm. This morning there were no messes. Still too many complaints to be pleasant, but that will come and your ear drums will thank me!
The weather is turning cool here, and I let them play out in the paddock until later in the evening, then they come in to the house to play before bed. Last night they all got pig ears and ooohhhh was that a treat! Some carried them around like prizes (Rainbow), some retreated to a location where no one could steal theirs (Red) and some just stole whichever ones they wanted (Orange and Cooper). The concept was to tire them out before bedtime. Good thought, only a couple hours of tugging and pig ears apparently wasn't a fair trade to being confined, in their opinion! Well, by the time they meet their new owners we will have that little hurdle crossed and you will never know the auditory torture I went through. What did you say??
