March 16th, 2011

Hello All,

Time is flying by and I can hardly believe Grace and Ellie are in the middle of their 5th week. Grace escaped the whelping box today (with the door closed, meaning she climbed out)! She had to have used the rail to stand on and I will have to remove it, now. They love to go outside and just over the past few days have mastered the few steps and love, love, love to rip and tear around the room, and then out the door that I have ajar, up the stairs and around the little fenced-in area outside. No “big yard” romping, yet, as it is a disaster and I need to do more winter clean up before I can let them out to explore. Plus, it is still just a steep hill of mud.  But, anyway, they love it outside and Grace will cry and scratch at the door if it is closed. And I do believe she was trying to get out to go “potty” earlier today, except I didn’t get the door open in time, so she peed on the carpet. 🙂 She tried. My fault.

They are really something else, just having a blast now getting into everything. Ellie is in high-gear all the time, zoom, zoom, zoom. Up, down, over, under, run, run, zoom, zoom, eat, sleep a while and do it all over again. Her ticking is really coming out suddenly and she will be beautifully colored. Her face reminds me of Nash’s, painted beautiful orange. And her back and legs are really showing quite a lot of coloration.

She and Grace are playing more together and Ellie stands up to her “big” sister as much as she can, using her smaller size to her advantage as well as her speed (she really can run fast!).  Both are at the stage where they love to chase and bite our feet, pant legs, etc. and you can’t get around the room very quickly at all. I gave up trying to sweep the floor as they think it is a total blast to grab the broom, hair balls, mop, what have you, and progress is next to none. Last night Ellie was on a step and Grace went up to join Ellie. Ellie butted her off the step–it was hilarious! She continued to protect her new spot and kept batting at Grace with her paws to keep her off her step. Too funny!  Very fun times.

They are both sight-pointing one another, Shay, and anyone that walks thru. They stalk one another, point, then pounce. I love that.

The latest news is that number 1 pick really wanted to take both girls. We presented this to number 2 pick with an offer of a pup from another litter and after a bit of deliberation, they agreed. So, Grace and Ellie will be staying together! Very exciting!

Santana is nothing short of huge. That’s all I can say. Poor girl! I really hate seeing them so miserable. 🙁 She just sleeps a lot. We can now see puppies moving around when she is lying still. She is in great spirits, eating well, and all seems good. Not long now.

I am going to try to introduce Grace and Ellie to life upstairs this weekend to get them ready for that move. I really want Santana to have a nice, quiet week of lounging downstairs with us and getting familiar with the whelping box and such. Things are a bit insane with so many of the gals in heat (yes, lots of excellent puppies this spring), so I am not sure about moving the gals upstairs, yet.  I might wait another week. We’ll see how it goes.

That’s it for tonight, folks. Hope it is looking like spring where you are!