File this under "Why I do what I do......"

I received a lovely letter this week from a family who bought one of Rosie's puppies from last winter.  Sometimes, not every family member is as "into" the idea of a puppy as others are.  Here's Sophia, to describe her quest to become the owner of a sweet and cuddly Australian Labradoodle puppy:

My Challenge
By Sophia

In the distance, I could hear the sound of a newborn puppy squeaking like a mouse.  My hart skipped with excitement!  I did not want to ask because I knew my dad would say no.  My hands were shaky and I was extremely impatient.  I could not wait any longer.  I wanted a new puppy and I was determined to convince my parents to get one.

Earlier that day my mom's friend called to see if we could get together.  I asked my mom if I could go, and she happily said yes.  Even better, I herd Shawna say some thing that peaked my interest that her daughter wrote a three page essay and gave it to her dad.  Convincing him to buy a dog for the family.  Her dad thought about it was very cute, and for her birthday, he rewarded her with a really cute and sweet new puggle.

So I wrote a convincing essay and put it on my dad's office chair.  When my dad saw it he immediately showed my mom.  She decided to do some research and began looking at breeders for Labradoodles, Poodles, and Goldendoodles.  After some time, she found a breeder called Mt.Park Labradoodles.  One evening Debi (the breeder) asked what we were looking for in a dog.  When we got home, my mind was sailing through a see of thoughts of dog names, and looks.  I even started to hear the dogs squeaks and whimpers.

The Next Month.....
I couldn't believe it!  After weeks waiting, we herd back from the breeder.  She said we have two matches-their names were Wilder and Manley, after much thought we chose Manley.  On the airplane back from Hawaii we wanted to keep his name, but we gave him a middle name it's Leon.  It is French for lion.

On April 10th, a lovely afternoon we went to pick up our first pet ever! Manley was so happy with everyone his body was going from side to side.  Now that he is older, but very happy.  He will always be our little sharing lion.  I am proud that I remained determined and wrote a convincing letter to my dad, asking him for a puppy.  Without it, Manley wouldn't be a beloved part of our family.

A note from "The Breeder":  Little Manley is now all grown up, and is a very well-behaved, talented member of Sophia's family.  He knows how to tango, how to sneeze on command, and- get this- how to say "I love you"!  He knows to go out one door to go potty, and another door to play.  I've tried to convince Sophia's mom to write a manual on how she trained him- we'll see.  Manley was out of Rosie and Snazzy Jazzy's February 2011 litter.  Our last litter from those parents is on its way, due March 28.  Wouldn't you like your own little Manley?

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Enjoy,

Debi and Anna

We'resoooooo tired of being cooped up in the bedroom!

Well, today's the day.  We're going to move the puppies downstairs into the family room, in the heart of what's going on.  Tonight, the puppies will be there to greet Anna when she gets back from opera rehearsal- she'll probably sing a bit for them :)  Then, Reid will roll in after a hard-fought football game against our rival, Jesuit HS.  Oh....better call them our friendly rival- one of our Mt. Park puppies belongs to a Jesuit family!  We love the Ehlens- and our Leo loves them, too!  Tomorrow, the puppies will have their first meal of mashed up, moistened puppy food with goat's milk.  It will take them just a few minutes to figure out how to eat it, and then look out!  After their meal, they're all going to get a quick rinse to remove the "eau de puppy pool" from their shiny coats, and then I suspect that they'll sleep the rest of the day.  And when they wake up, we'll know, because the 10 little rascals have definitely discovered their voices!

10 days has sure flown by....

Don't worry- she's keeping the puppy warm, not squishing it!

Boy, combine a new litter of puppies simultaneously with the first week of school, a bunch of auditions for one kid, opera rehearsals for same said child,  a 50th anniversary party for my parents, a few football games, and I have been completely unaware of time passing.  I've done a whole lot of puppy care, but I think my brain is so overloaded that I haven't noticed much!  The puppies are huge- Samson (true to the example set by his brother, Manly, in the last litter) leads the pack at just over 2 pounds.  Tristan is the smallest, as he was when he was born, but he's growing rapidly and appropriately on his own curve.  The puppies get weighed every day, to make sure that no one is missing a meal.  While I have them in hand to weigh them, we do early neural stimulation with them.  To get the gist of ENS, go to page 4 of the linked article.  This method of stimulation is said to produce dogs that are outgoing, not easily frightened, and more emotionally resilient than dogs who haven't been exposed to such stimulation.  Read and see what you think!

Their eyes aren't open yet, but they are doing some form of marine crawl around the puppy pool.  I would guess that their eyes will be open in another few days, and then, let the fun begin!  Dave and I are already making our plans for the puppies' big move downstairs to the "big" puppy box in our family room- this should take place somewhere toward the end of next week.

I'm still staying very close to home, only leaving for a couple of hours at a time.  We hired a great "puppy sitter" while we were gone for my mom and dad's party on Sunday- my peace of mind was worth every penny spent.

We're proud to introduce- (ta da!) The Opera Litter- Born September 4

Rosie had her Opera Litter yesterday.  If you'll remember, our last litter was the Little House Litter- Laura, Mary, and all the gang grew up here last spring.  In a remarkably easy (for me to say) and uneventful delivery, Rosie had 10 puppies yesterday: 6 girls and 4 boys.  I think they're beautiful, and I think you'll think so, too!  One of the puppies, Figaro, is the darkest red I've ever encountered, and there are 4 others who fall into the red/apricot category.  Then, we have 5 who are loosely grouped into a sort of buff/beige/blonde (alliteration not intentional) assortment.  They are extremely wiggly, vigorous puppies- to the point that it was almost impossible to get photos of them today.  Obviously they missed the part where newborn pups are supposed to be still, sleep constantly, except when they're eating...

If you're interested, the names are all characters from famous operas, in honor of my 13-year-old daughter Anna's complete and total passion for opera:

Figaro         The Marriage of Figaro and others

Samson       Samson and Delilah

Tristan         Tristan and Isolde

Hansel         Hansel and Gretel

Flora           La Traviata

Mimi           La Boheme

Turandot     Turandot  (we'll call her Dottie)

Carmen       Carmen

Rosina         The Marriage of Figaro and others

Gretel          Hansel and Gretel

Mom and babies are doing very well- each of the pups put on a bit of weight overnight, so they're being well-cared for.  Rosie's in 7th heaven- she lives for having puppies.  No kidding- she's grinning and wagging her tail nonstop, and unbelievably already has a waistline back.  You'd never know that yesterday she weighed 45 pounds (9 pounds over her starting weight).

Check back often for updates, and pictures, if I can just get those active little ones under control.

Another blogger in the family....read all about it!

My daughter and full-blown partner in our dog business, Anna Louise, has written a blog post about one of the puppies.  Check it out- I think Anna did a phenomenal job!
http://annalmartin.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

Naughty puppies!

Something discovered the hard way. 5 week old puppies enjoy chewing on the tubing to Anna's insulin pump. So much so that they actually chewed right through it and the pump wearer had no idea until it was much, much later......a problem, but no real harm done :P
Should have taken pictures, but I think we were too busy putting out the fire.