Lord Jim's Journal

Puppy update

2008-07-24T02:34:25Z

Bringing the puppy in to sleep with me and Kissy worked out ok. She whined a little at first and that made Kissy a little nervous. So Kissy got up in bed with me and scraped up some covers for a bed. The puppy settled down after about 15 minutes. Once she quieted down, Kissy moved back down to the floor. I heard the puppy russling around a couple of times during the night, but she didn't fuss or anything.

Took her out when I first got up. She hadn't messed at all in the cage. She'll probably be pretty easy to house break.

It's going to be very lonely in that backyard when they all leave. I'm already feeling it.

Last puppy almost gone

2008-07-23T01:40:18Z

The next door neighbor took the last male. And a lady called on Monday wanting the last female. They'll be down on Saturday to pick it up. They live in Monroe Michigan.

It's starting to sink in that soon there won't be any puppies out there. Kissy and I will have to get back in a routine of going places together. I'm pretty sure I'll have another litter next spring. I won't have her bred this next cycle which should be starting anytime now. Kissy needs a break and I don't want to have to deal with 8 puppies as winter comes on.

I think I'm going to bring the girl inside to sleep in a crate in my room. This may not work with me, Kissy and the puppy all in there together. But it should beat having her barking half the night at the lightning that was invading her back yard.

Weekend puppy toll

2008-07-21T01:56:14Z

Friday the couple came from Toledo and took one of the boys.
Saturday the couple came from Pittsburg asnd took one of the boys.
Sunday the couple came from Dayton and didn't take a puppy. They seem to be having trouble deciding whether they wanted the boy or the girl. I think the guy wanted the boy, but his wife wanted the girl. He kept checking them out and then asking her which she wanted. She kept saying the girl and then he kept checking and then asking her again. She never wavered, but I don't think it was the answer he wanted. So they left to talk it over and call back.

Meanwhile, the next door neighbor was faced with all the boys being gone and she wanted one but just couldn't quite commit. Well, I warned her that I had 3 people coming to look at the boys and that the boy she wanted was likely to be gone by the end of the weekend. Well, turns out he was the one that was left and they quit putting it off and decided they really wanted him. So, he's sorta gone too. I'll be keeping him over here part time until they really have a place to keep him. But that's ok. I don't mind that. I kept the one that went to Green Bay for almost a month before they came to get it.

So, I'm left with one girl. I can easily keep her. Mom said that if I keep her and Honey, her dog who is about 12 years old, dies then she gets the puppy. So, I don't think there are any objections to the last girl staying unless someone wants her pretty soon.

Another puppy gone

2008-07-19T20:47:49Z

The people from Pittsburg showed up in their HUGE motorhome. They took a male. Of course right before they got here, the two males figured out that the alpha male was gone and it was time to elect a new supreme leader. The male that was taken yesterday was pretty much the dominate one so once he left the other two needed to see who was going to be in charge. So right as the couple showed up, I'm trying to seperate these two. It worked out since I have about three different ways of making seperate areas.

They took one of the males and now I have a set of twins left. They look almost exactly alike, one female and one male. The male has white toes on his front feet so when I try to figure out which is which I look to the toes.

It's going to be a lonely backyard once they are all gone. I haven't heard from the guy in Dayton about when he's going to come tomorrow. I guess that is still on.

Puppy update

2008-07-19T14:29:31Z

Retraction on part of yesterday's post. The weight of the smaller male wasn't really 16 lbs. The reading at the vet's was wrong. He actually weighs about 19.5 lbs so he isn't lighter than a female. That had bothered me. I just found it hard to believe that as close together as all the males had been all along that all of a sudden there was 4 lbs difference in them. So I got out my handy precision scale and reweighed all of them and sure enough the others matched the vet, but he weighed about a half pound less than the other males. Much more believeable. He was squirming around on the scale at the vet's and I guess it just didn't get a good reading.

In other news, the couple from Toledo came and got their puppy yesterday evening. And I talked with a neighbor yesterday during Kissy's walk and he was going to call his brother about taking which ever one I have left at the end of this weekend. This neighbor guy stopped to talk to me about Kissy when I first got here about 3 years ago. Said he had been looking all over for a Keeshond. I hadn't talk with him since. He was out in his yard and called out to Kissy by name. I crossed the street to say hi and mention that I had puppies. He got real excited and said he thought his brother would want one. He had gotten a half-breed Keeshond and wasn't happy with it, but wasn't really looking for another dog himself.

Stay tuned, more puppy stuff to come. I don't know what I'll write about once all the puppies are gone.

Puppy update

2008-07-18T21:05:28Z

I took the puppies to the vet for their last round of puppy shots. There was a couple of surprises. Two of the boys weighed 20 pounds. Three weeks ago, they weighed 14 1/2. That's, what, something over a 33% gain in 3 weeks. Also, for the first time in a long time, a female outweighs a male. My last female weighs 17 lbs and the other male only weighs 16 lbs.

In other news, I've been getting about 5 times as many inquiries for females as for males. So I figured soon the last female would be gone and I'd have 3 males left. Well, imagine my surprise when as this weekend started to unfold that I have 3 people coming for the males. One person is already on their way down from Toledo. Another couple is coming from Pittsburg tomorrow. And a guy is coming on Sunday from Dayton.

If this all works out and I end up with just a female, I may just keep her and quit pushing for anyone to take her. I'll have to think about it. I eventually want a female to keep, but I don't know if I want to take one this time or have another litter and keep one from it. Hmmm?

Puppy update or Keeshond owners

2008-07-14T02:18:34Z

I have to say that Keeshond owners are a loyal group. Almost every inquiry I've had about the puppies has been from previous or current Keeshond owners. Usually from someone who has had to put their dog down and is looking to replace it. And they want nothing but another Keeshond.

I've had inquiries from DC, Maryland, Pittsburgh, Puerto Rico, Seattle besides the ones that have actually come and got a puppy. The guy from Cleveland called at 6 one afternoon and asked if he could come down that night to get it. It's over 5 hours from Cleveland. But he can down, got here around midnight and turned around and took it back that night. Another lady was from Jasper Indiana, about an hour west of Louisville. Another came down from Toledo, which is about 4 hours away. The lady that came this weekend was from Green Bay. She was trying to decide between my puppy and another one in Nebraska. Green Bay is about 500 miles. They came down on Friday and went back on Saturday.

Keeshonds are rare enough that when people get a chance to get one, they don't mind going to a lot of effort to get it.

Otherwise, the puppies are doing great. I thought a lady was coming for the last female today. But she didn't show or call. I'll probably hear from her tomorrow, or not. If she does take it, I'll have 3 males left. It'll probably take a while for them to be taken. Almost no one asks about males.

One ear left to go

2008-07-03T22:49:55Z

And it's almost standing up like it's suppose to. It does sometimes but then flops over.

Mom let some of the puppies out yesterday. That was scary. She was putting the garbage can away and they slipped out. Three of them. Mom couldn't catch them (she's 84) and they got out in the street. Luckily when a car came near they all ran back toward the house. I'm sure glad she got them back in, no telling where their curiousity would have taken them by the time I could have gotten home to help find them.

Otherwise, all the puppies are doing great. A lady from Green Bay is coming next week to pick one up. I'm not sure if I should wear one of my Cowboys t-shirts when she's here. Probably not. I'd hate for her to turn around and leave.

Puppies at the door

2008-06-28T17:43:02Z

I've pretty much quit weighing the puppies since they've gotten so big it's hard to find anything to hold them long enough to get the weight. I could weigh them on a bathroom scale, but that isn't accurate enough.

Anyway, I took the puppies to the vet for another round of shots and a rabies vaccine and worming. The girls weighed in at 12.6 and 13.4 and the boys were 14, 14.4 and 14.6. A little quick math and you find that is almost 70 lbs of dogs and they eat like twice that. One of the girls is sold, but won't be picked up until July 12th.

Here is what I'm greeted with everytime I go to the back door and call "Puppies!!"

Kissy and the puppies video

2008-06-20T02:15:49Z

Here's a video of Kissy and the puppies. I shot it with my new camcorder. It's a Samsung SC MX10. I'm going to take it back to Circuit City. I have fought with the file conversions all week and almost nothing can play the file in it's native format and the best of the conversions come out like this You Tube video with all the hesitation and blurred areas. Anyway, I think I'm going to get a Canon ZR 950. At least I should be able to take a video and play it and be able to send it to someone and expect them to be able to play it too.

That's my rant, now for the video:

The puppies are so cute. And Kissy is so good with them. You'd think she'd kick their butts after a while, but she plays with them for hours at a time. They do let up after a while and do other things, but they usually come right back and attack her again.

2 ears left to go

2008-06-18T22:42:17Z

Keeshonds have small pointed ears that stand up. The are very expressive and move up and back and flat out to the side depending what they are trying to say. But when they are at attention they stand up very erect.

Well, I have two puppies left with floppy puppy ears, but they are each starting to hold up their right ear, so it won't be long before they are holding them both up like the rest of them. I think I mentioned here that one of the females started holding her ears up at about 4 weeks old.

Ya know something else that tends to piss me off

2008-06-15T17:51:06Z

It's people that have their dogs out in the front yard and don't restrain nor control them. I walk Kissy on a leash, not because she needs one. She's not going anywhere but right beside me. I don't worry about her crossing the street without a leash. I don't worry about her chasing squirrels out in front of cars. I don't worry about her attacking someone meeting us or kids playing in their front yard, in fact I take her leash off when there are kids to play with. I don't worry about her attacking another dog that is being walked nearby.

It's the dogs that are loose in the front yard and come charging at us when we walk down the sidewalk. Always with someone yelling "stop" but the dog keeps charging. Then once it all settles they appologize. Ya know, me keeping my dog on a leash just so I can guard against your dog charging at her and posibly running her out in the street aggrevates me.

I let Kissy out in the front yard all the time. But she's not going to go after anything or anyone. She'll bark, that's her job, but Keeshonds are watchdogs, not fighters. She'll tell me of an intruder, but she'll also tell me that it's up to me to do something about it. She ain't fighting the battle. Also, I have complete control over her with just commands.

It's these people that know full well that they have no control over their dog if another dog comes around and yet take them out loose in the yard. Sometimes without even staying out with them. Yesterday, a dog came at me and Kissy from across the street with a guy yelling "stop! stop!" I blocked it with my foot, if you know what I mean, from getting to Kissy and then stared it down and made it back off till the owner finally got there. It wasn't viscious, just that if I hadn't had control of Kissy, this would have gone out into the street and no telling where else. Why do I have to control my dog and home/dog owners don't????

Speaking of AVID chips

2008-06-14T14:15:03Z

I got an inquiry this morning from a guy that said:
The chip bothers me, can I get one without the chip?

Uh? No, I'm not going to have it taken back out.

The AVID people are trying to piss me off

2008-06-14T14:08:38Z

AVID is the people that make the ID chip that is implanted in animals and they have this PetTrac system to keep track of the owner of the animal. Well, when I was first taking Kissy up to the breeder, I had a chip implanted because I wanted to make sure that she didn't end up lost in the middle of Indiana if something happened and she slipped out of her collar and ran off or something. Not that it was a big worry, just being cautious.

So, anyway, I had the chip implanted and paid my fee for the PetTrac and didn't think much more about it. Well, time passes and I was thinking of registering all the puppies under my name so that if a buyer failed to register a puppy at least someone would be on record and be trace down. And it's cheap to register them in a group. Since I'd already paid for the chips and extra $5 each wasn't a big deal.

I had a question for AVID about how to do group register thing since their form didn't have near enough places to put 8 puppies and much of the information didn't really apply. While I was checking online for how to do this, I noticed that I should have gotten a form back from them with all the registration info so that I could correct it if necessary. I mention to the lady on the phone that I never got anything like that and asked how I was suppose to make sure the info on Kissy was correct. I gave her the number and she said that it had never been registered at all. Hmmm? Says me. She said if I could find a receipt that she'd register Kissy over the phone. I said fat chance of me finding anything like that.

I resolved to paying the $15 again while I was registering the puppies and be done with it. Time passes again and I haven't yet sent in the forms to register the puppies and I get a letter from AVID. I think it is just some advertising since I had register at their website, but NO. It was the information on Kissy. It had a membership number for me and that I had been a member since Aug 2007. I didn't give her any of this over the phone, just the number that didn't exist in their system except for knowing the vet that it was originally sold to.

I did get a chuckle out of the opening paragraph of the letter. It said:
>>> Your pet has been registered in PETtrac, the 24/7 pet recovery service, since we received you initial information. In order to provide this protection for your pet, it's our policy to have your initial information scanned into our system within 24 hours of receipt. <<<

24 hours or 10 months, same thing!

Puppy update, they are getting so big

2008-06-11T01:54:28Z

It's been a little over 10 days since the last weigh-in. I only have 2 females left. They weigh 9lbs 7ozs & 10lbs 4ozs. Still gaining fairly steadily. I have all 4 boys. They range from 10-10 to 11-6. The total weigh is 63-4 for 6 puppies. Last time they weighed 61-13 for 8 puppies.

Here's a picture that isn't quite as blurred as the last ones.

Here's the whole album on Photobucket:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v74/lordjim/PuppiesLatest/

Here's a slideshow of those pictures:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v74/lordjim/PuppiesLatest/?albumview=slideshow

lordjim @ 2008-06-08T17:11:00

2008-06-08T21:14:49Z

The puppies are doing great. I sold one last weekend, a couple drove down from Cleveland at midnight to pick it up. A lady is coming on Monday to take one back with her to Jasper, IN. Keeshond owners seem to be a pretty dedicated group. All the inquiries I have are from previous owners that don't want anything but another Keeshond.

They are doing really good. And they do get even cuter. They stay outside all the time now. I've enclosed the patio so that I can bring them in there if the weather is bad. They destroyed Mom's hostas. I turn them out into the backyard from their pen. I didn't think much about them being able to get to the hostas since the only time I saw them near them they just tunneled in under them and came out the other side. Well that was great until about 4 of them tried it at the same time. Since, as always, that led to a fight and they rolled all over the hostas. But Mom's not going to kill any of them, maybe me.

They aren't selling quite as fast as I expected so I'm not sure I'll breed Kissy again. If not, Mom has picked one that I can't sell until last so I'll probably keep him no matter what. Mom picked him out when he was a few hours old because he had white toes on all 4 feet. That's not a real desireable trait for the breed, but he's going to be a beautiful dog. Every time anyone comes to look at them, they end up picking him up and saying how good he looks, even when they are looking for a female. So, he's probably going to be the keeper no matter what.

Just to show that I haven't quit taking pictures of them, here's Kissy with her puppies:

WOW!

2008-06-07T22:50:32Z

That was a surprise. Who would've thought that Big Brown would have been beaten so easily. The hype was that this was a walkaway. I guess that just shows that winning the triple crown is so hard to do.

Pretty simple family

2008-06-06T22:19:39Z

Create your own family sticker graphic at pYzam.com

Puppies update, but mostly just an update

2008-05-31T21:38:24Z

We had some overnight storms last night so I brought the puppies in. They've been staying outside overnight when the weather is ok. They wake up about 5:30 when it first starts to get light out. Great way to start a Saturday morning, huh? Especially since Kissy was very excited by the storms and they started about 2am. Anyway, I let them whine till about 6:30 and then got ready to take them outside.

When I walked in the room they were in, one puppy was out of the cage and looking in the freezer. She didn't open the freezer door. It had been open all night. I guess I didn't close it good when I put the ice cream back last night. I wiped her off and put her outside and when I came back in another one was wandering around the living room. I put her outside and came back to see one on top of the cage. I put the rest outside and then took a look at the freezer.

I need more ice cream. The ice cream took the worst of it. There was melted chocolate ice cream on everything. An hour or so later, I had completed the half-ass defrosting and wiped everything off and got the freezer going again.

As of Thursday, the total weight of the puppies is 61lbs 13ozs. My runt is 6-10, a half pound less than 2 of the girls and a pound less than the big girl. The boys range from 7-13 to 8-11. They are growing about 3ozs a day, so some of the boys are probably over 9lbs by now.

Vet day for the puppies.

2008-05-24T02:03:17Z

Yesterday was vet day. Kissy needed her yearly shot and the puppies had their shots and worming, plus I had AVID chips put into them. It went pretty well. I strapped my large kennel in the bed of the truck, then put a large popup cloth kennel inside that. The reason for that was so their legs couldn't stick through the bars of the metal kennel. That could be hazardous if stopped or turned with their leg caught. Anyway, we arrived safe and sound. I just parked in front of the door and opened the tailgate and took them in one by one. Once she gove them the shots and stuff they were put in the vet's kennel until we were all finished. Kissy rode in the front with me as usual.

Also the girls weigh from 5-5 to 6-5. The runt girl gained 8 ozs in 3 days which was about average. The boys weigh from 6-10 to 7-3. The total weight of all the puppies is 51lbs 7ozs. Kissy weighs 45lbs.

Puppy update

2008-05-20T02:12:53Z

I skipped one update, but it can just stay skipped.
The girls are from 4-13 to 5-14. My girl runt is still noticably lighter than the rest, but she gained 5 ozs in the past 3 days so I'm not worried. The boys range from 6-1 to 6-10. They aren't missing any meals.

New picture of the puppies, well 4 of them anyway:

Also, this is the link to The album with individual pictures:
http://photobucket.com/KissysPuppies

And it just wouldn't do to not have a couple of Kissy showing off for the camera:

Puppy update

2008-05-13T02:15:17Z

Three of the girls weigh 4lbs 13ozs, the other 4lbs 6ozs. But they all gained 9 or 10ozs in 3 days so they are all doing ok. The runt is just a little smaller but gaining the same as the rest so all is well.

Two boys are 5-4 and 5-6, the other two are 5-12 and 5-13. So the bigger boys are a pound bigger than the bigger girls. The boys gained from 8 to 12ozs.

The total weight is 41lbs. Kissy weighs about 44lbs. They'll catch up with her by the time of their 6 weeks vet appointment later this week.

They really enjoy being outside in the pen. Kissy is really enjoying getting back to me and her doing things without nursing the puppies.

Puppies playing in their new outdoor pen

2008-05-11T01:40:58Z

This camera doesn't do that well for video but I just had to give it a try.

Puppy weights

2008-05-10T01:34:24Z

The girls range from 3lbs 13ozs to 4lbs 4ozs. The girl runt is the only one below 4lbs, but she's gaining about the same as the others for the past few weighings so she's ok, just small.

The boys range from 4-12 to 5-4. That 5-4 weight may be a case of way too much in the belly. That's a 10oz gain in three days and his belly is tight as a tick so next reading may show him back in the range with the other boys.

They have to go to the vet next week for their well baby check up and shots. Kissy is due a shot too. This is going to be fun. Maybe I need to start teaching them to walk on a lease.

I need to build them an outside pen tomorrow. They are so big that they need to get out where they can move around a lot. It's so wet out there that they may not be able to get out anyway. Or I can just turn them loose in the mud and hose them down when I bring them in.

Puppy pictures

2008-05-08T00:47:07Z

Remember this:

April 2, 2008

May 2, 2008
What a difference a month makes

Feeding time