what the morning brought

Well, I must say the pen was an absolute doddle to clean this morning! And the puppies slept until 7am to boot. I think it's becoming clear who the noisy, messy ones have been...

Ha ha, just kidding. The reason the puppies slept in and the pen was so unusually clean was down to the 2 - count them - TWO middle-of-the-night cleanups. Not the puppies' fault, it has to be said.

Somehow, while the Lapphunds miraculously (and unusually) avoided it, Anniebear - the dignified old Akita who rarely sticks her nose in where she shouldn't and would rather starve than eat anything disgusting and who is never ill - managed to pick up some kind of stomach bug yesterday and had the squits all night. The first one was in her crate and the rest were outside and, at some point after 3:30 am, one was on (and near...) the newspaper left for the purpose. Poor old bear.

Of course, while Jay was worrying about Annie, Neka, supermum that she is (or just disgusting little gannet, you decide) nipped into Annie's crate and cleaned everything right up. Cue the most disgusting vomit imaginable. Remember this? Well, last night was similar, but without the terrible worry. Some consolation. I guess.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the very good reasons for crate training your dog and having them sleep in it at night. No, not so that any night-time accidents are contained (although that's not a bad reason either) but so that the well behaved dog who isn't usually locked up at night, doesn't get into any trouble when you least expect it. And at hours when you are least able to deal with it. Keskiyö? Safely tucked up in his crate snoozing away. No problem.

So, while Jay was downstairs with Annie he gave the pups a quick cleanup. Then when I went down 20 minutes later to take Neka out a dozen or so times, I gave them another mini-clearout.

Result: tired puppies & a relatively clean pen. Not bad for a night's work.

And if you were wondering what the puppies' little bags consist of as they leave home, here is a puppy pack:

The box on the left contains food, an info leaflet about the food, a measuring cup, a bag of bedtime treats which, in this case, are Markies, a little Nylabone and the particular puppy's favorite toy from the selection they have all been playing with.

The folder contains all the paperwork - contract, feeding schedule, pedigree, insurance, breed info, etc.

The plastic bag contains a piece of rolled up vet bed which has spent a few hours in the puppy pen. So, it has been stomped all over with smelly, muddy paws, been chewed, dragged about and, yes, probably weed on (at least). To a puppy setting off to its new home, it's a little piece of familiarity to snuggle into at night and it smells wonderful.

Well, it smells nice to the puppy at least. The family will probably want to put it through the washing machine before very many days pass. Vet bed is great stuff, though. You can often buy it from rolls so you get made-to-measure sizes. Liquid goes right through leaving the surface fairly dry and you can just chuck it into the washing machine and tumble dryer and it lasts a very long time. I think I still have a piece or two from when Neka was a puppy, so there you go.