My plan for today was to move everything down to the mudroom and make a two room, huge pen area. The mud room has a cement floor making clean-up infinitely easier than the old wooden floors in the great room. The first problem was the whelping box. Being made out of oak with 2 foot high walls, it is heavy. I could not get it down the stairs by myself. Plan B became put the pups into the outside x-pen while I worked and just set up the other x-pen in the mud room without the whelping box. Not to be. I could not secure the x-pen and they would have quickly breached it. Plan C: move more furniture, bring in the outside x-pen and create a two room condo in the great room. Too much planning and moving. Since major storms are predicted for the rest of the week, I decided that running around outside was the best option. Then I could tackle the enclosure issue.
"check this out!"
Chinook tag gone awry. Kaltag was tagged a bit hard and rolled down the hill.
Think about it - this rock is about 3" taller than Nome. He did not take a running start. He is becoming one strong boy.
Willow pretty in pink.
About the time I got everyone rounded up and into the outside x-pen, it started storming so hard we lost electricity. I had taken down the x-pen around the whelping box in anticipation of the move so there was no place to confine pups indoors. It wasn't until I got their new digs built: the pups confined and electricity back that I realized the primary telephone jack had been a target of puppy curiosity. I had no telephone or Internet service. Off to Radio Shack where they told me that our type of jacks are so old, they don't even make replacements for them anymore. I came home with a tube of super glue and a modern wall jack in case the glue did not work. Thank heavens for super glue.
The idea behind the condo is that the pups start to be potty and crate trained. The whelping box area is for potty and the other side is for sleeping, eating and playing. That is the theory, now somehow I need to convey it to the pups. They had been doing so well only pottying on the newsprint and sleeping on the white paper, I thought I was on to something. Well, the crate worked. They are all asleep in it as I type. More potty training in the morrow. This storm is expected to last several days.
puppy condo 4'x 8' - not bad
Takotna from her threshold vantage point.