slap

I have had just the right number of admonishments on my recent lack of attention to this, my beloved blog, to get me back to the keyboard. So, not an actual slap. More the metaphorical kind.

The puppies are just about 11 weeks old now and all well and truly settled into their new homes. That's true even of Marja (The Puppy Formerly Known as Marilyn), who didn't go to her new home until she was almost 10 weeks old and her family returned from their holiday.

This is where I would normally post a photo of her with her new family as they set off from here. But for the first time in all the puppies who have left here, I don't have a photo. I distinctly remember taking some but apparently I accidentally deleted them from the camera at some point. Don't ask me how, because I have no idea. Put it down to the puppy-parting trauma. Instead, here's Mark being taken on a tour of the new garden for the first time.















We have kept puppies for a couple of extra weeks before - in fact, this has usually been to accommodate previously planned family holidays - but it always worked out a bit easier to manage in the past. It is one thing to say goodbye to the puppies when they are one of a bunch, going off to their new homes one after the other. It's not easy, as such, but it's normal, expected, part of the natural order of things. It's another thing entirely to keep one longer than everyone else, have her slot into your routine and start going for walks with the big dogs and all that. A completely different story.

Taito from our first litter, stayed until he was 9 weeks old and then as he was leaving, his brother Torvi returned for a week, having been in his new home a fortnight already. So there was plenty of distraction to keep us from getting to attached to one or the other. Emma tells me that Rauhan stayed a bit longer than his littermates too, but I have no recollection of that - I dare say I was rather befuddled by the raising of the litter of 9. At any rate, we kept Maija from that litter, so again she provided a welcome distraction from all the goodbyes. From Taika's litter, Minna was the last to go, but she went only a couple of days after Usko, so it was just routine farewells somewhat extended. Parting with Marja was very difficult. Very. I really don't recommend it.

In the week before she left we had a play date with her brother Ukko.













And now she's very happy being spoiled by Maria & Mark. Well, spoiled by Mark and properly trained by Maria. Here she is spreading her toys around, taking over her new house.













I do have plenty of updates on everyone and will get to another post with them just as soon as ... well, let's just say that I still have a lot on my plate even with the puppies away.