Jest Another Day in Pear-A-Dice - Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm in Alberta

[Teila]

I'm hooked .. I love them!!

"We came, we saw, we conquered .. today flags, tomorrow the furniture!"

 

[drumstick diva]

Has Foamy gotten a glimpse of them yet?

 

[perchie.girl]

Great shots Tara.... Me thinks your going to be pretty dang busy these next few weeks and or months. This age is sooo awesome too.

deb

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

DD, Lacy is going to be light red, not a dark red like Fixins was...Lacy is more like a red mottled than a red speckle in the sense that she is light with darker dots...Emmy is speckled in the sense she is dark with light dots...they are like photo negatives of each other in the dotty dot sense. Lacy has light background with darker dots, and Emmy has dark background with lighter dots!

Lacy under a chair in the puppy playground...puppy den, puppy cave? ​

So my hillbilly teeter totter is a hit...both pups are amusing themselves, peeling the birch bark off the firewood round...wonder if we can employ them full time to do a few deBARKing (pun intended) of some fence rails, eh??

Not teetered or tottered yet, but let the peeling continue!

Now some of the things that Rick and I did, are being used and doing EXACTLY the jobs or purposes they were intended for...

The tuggy timber is a HUGE success...​

The girls love it and once they focus on this item, it is hard to distract them on to doing anything else in the puppy playground...to me that means good for dogs, pupper approved!

I have NOT uncovered the sand or the water splish tubs ... it was rainy today and I was not into a sandy soaking dog...the soaking dog part was well taken care of by the thunderstorms we had rolling in and out today. I have been washing laundry like a bugger today...towels for belly rubs and body drys were pretty popular or is that PUPular?

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Wiring in under the Man Porch...oh MY...now that was a great precursor to keeping the puppy girls safe and within boundaries. Rick gets A ++++ for that foresight. What a nightmare it could have been with the girls scrambling under there...but with the wire in place, under the porch is a NON issue!

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We are immensely pleased with how well the pups were socialized by the Breeder. Not just how good they are physically (breezed thru the long journey!), but mentally they are such keeners and not afraid and you can see from above, know all about "people" chairs and how to make themselves at home! Rick gets the big greeting, they love sticking their heads inside his shoes...and Emmy near ran off with one of my shoes in the Porch as I was getting them on to go outside... "Hurry up...oh never mind, I'll run off with your shoe and you will hafta hurry outside, ready or not!"

In a nutshell, Lacy is a love...and Emmy is a thinker. Both have good brains, but when you see Lacy come for a hug and just melt in your arms...yeh, love bug indeed. Emmy is about getting hugs too, but she is also about playing with toys and she is the one that noticed when I was picking up rocks in the pasture and tossing them in the driveway ("What's that noise...is something over there that needs a barking to?"), while Emmy did the cute woof woof puppy warning bark...Lacy was more about me stopping to pet her when I was reaching for another rock to huck out of the grass.

Dogs always look cute with neckers on...​

DD, no, we have not made it that far to see about introducing Foamy. We got as far as the swans and just walking past the duck barn and that was enough in my mindset for their little minds to take in being so new here. We have years to get this going, eh and one day is only so many hours long. The very very last thing I want to do is make the pups fearful. I read a very good book on raising puppies that warns you not to introduce pups at 12 weeks to 16 weeks to older dogs that may take a negative stance towards the pups. I do not need to instill fear of other dogs in the girls...they are clean slates at this point with no hang-ups about much of anything right now. And Foamy does not need to be badly introduced by me to the girls either. I need to have my wits about me and I am just plumb tired, happy but tired right now.

Rick and I do not know if Foamy will like the girls or not...in either case, I took Foamy out this evening to do our regular routine like the pups were not even here...they were napping inside, so nobody is any wiser but I suspect the pups smell another dog and Foamy smells the pups.


I did however get as far as introducing the swans to their Ozzy dog cousins.

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This was an easy intro because this pair was contained where they could not attack the girls. They hissed and the girls kept back (a good thing, wing slaps can hurt!)...so that was good.

I took the girls to see the other pair but had to put collars and brace on lead because I had opened the back gate for Rick to come home thru.

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I get the impression the brace chain is a new feature in their lives...

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They seemed to catch on that they were tied to each other...not on separate leads.

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And even came up with a plan on how to eliminate the lead and brace chain in a joint effort to CHEW their way outta the confines!

Just cause you two got AUSTRALIAN in your namesake, don't mean I am going to be nice nice to you whippersnapper pups!​

Pearl is not too pleased with them but I can see a joint respectful relationship developing...har har! Fixins use to steal Pearl's lettuce leaves...so Pearl KNOWS about dogs...she knows!!

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[Teila]

Aaaaw, just too cute!

I love all the pictures; they look so happy and you sound happy....good stuff; keep it coming

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

OK...one more post...this time on puppy play...man alive I did way way too much laughing...the laughing out loud but for real you could not stop it kind.

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The girls get along very well with each other. Lacy is six days older than Emmy and at this tender age, that can be quite an advantage for Lacy. Even if they were the same age, as pups they need supervision to make sure nobody gets bullied or is on the losing end too often. So which one wins more, Lacy or Emmy?

Here are some dog play photos to see.

OK...nice nice play play tugging.
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Yeh, OK nice nice playing until one of them misbehaves and says something nasty about their mother and well...

"Hey, Em...yer Mother wears ARMY BOOTS!"



"Does NOT!" "Does SO!"​

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I think here, Emmy is winning...serves Lacy right for dissing Em's Momma, eh!

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Lacy has the upper paw here, you can't even barely SEE Emmy!

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Kind of a nobody wins this one...this is happening at my feet...good gosh...some girls eh? Rough housing indeed AND using the very neckers I put on their necks as leverage...sheesh!

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This one is a clear WIN for Emmy...

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Now one does have to ponder the six days younger thing here...Emmy seems to be winning more than Lacy in these rough housings?

Could it be...could it be because of what I saw this morning... that if you use another pup's head to hold yer toy (meanwhile Emmy is whispering to Lacy, "Feel this toy I am chewing...could be yer ear I decide to floss with next if you don't let me win more today!"), that THAT stays with your opponent all day long??

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Emmy's a thinker...all in the strategic planning, eh.

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[drumstick diva]

I'm supposed to be sleeping but, had to sneak back and see if you posted anything else - I was right!. How many hundred pictures do you have to show us? I love you narration - always wonder what they will say next. I'm totally satisfied and ready to sleep even though you ARE the one who got the work out. You are right that aussie pups look like mature dogs only smaller. I know I will dream about them having a tug of war. Goodnight Tara.

 

[CanuckBock]

Sweet dreams Sweetness...count pups, not lambs, eh! Tuggy puppers.

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I picked these special to go in the girl's food today...now it makes planting a garden WORTH it...to have things to share with more dog mouths.

The pups had natural yoghurt in their third meal yesterday...gotta keep them growing up healthy and happy.

 

[Bunnylady]

The ACD's have landed! Let the destruction begin!!!

Just kidding, Tara, but I can't help flashing back to a couple of what we believe were Belgian Shepherd mixes that Critter and I rescued many years ago. They were about the same age as your girls are, and absolutely nothing was sacred to them. I remember surveying the wreckage of about 5 flats of our most expensive pansies and saying, "you guys are trying to find out just how much I love you, aren't you? "

It's funny, we have had a lot of other dogs come and go in our lives, but those two are the ones we miss the most. Gotta love those bad boys (and girls!)

Looking forward to lots of fun and loving posts about these two characters!

 

[microchick]

Beautiful girls. I LOVE ACDs. I'm surprised neither has chewed their way in or out of their enclosure. Our 7 year old boy has never met a fence that he couldn't chew his way out of including chain link kennel panels and barbed wire.