Saturday, December 13, 2008

The new addition makes it home ...

The new addition makes it home ...

12/13/2008 10:17:41 PM
We didn't make it down to Oregon last Sunday (Dec 7th) as it wasn't convenient for the breeder, we rearranged our visit for Tuesday (Dec 9th).  Kohl had a 'sleep over' at Canine College on Monday so that we could get an early start Tuesday morning.  We left home at 7.05am, the weather was dry and the roads clear so we had a really good trip down.  We stopped in Starbucks in Centralia (exactly half way) for morning coffee and picked-up some sandwiches.
We arrived dead on 12.30pm to see the puppies.  Kim had fewer dogs than when we last visited (4 years ago) and had placed Kohl's dad in a pet home where he is doing therapy work.  Kim had 2 adult females, Eddie (Sky's dad) and a 6 month old puppy.  She also still had Sky's mum on lease. 
We looked at all 5 blue boys while we were there:
  1. Butt spot
  2. Backspot
  3. Tail spot
  4. Ear spot
  5. Head spot
We were soon able to narrow down the puppies from 5 to 3, ear spot and head spot weren't as bold as the others and weren't really what we were looking for.  Our trainer told us to look for the most obnixious puppy, the one that play attacked the others and came to visit with us but was also bold enough to leave the group and go exploring on his own.


We took lots of video and also some photos, I haven't yet figured out how to upload video, but here are one or two photos of butt spot from our 2 hour visit.
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During the visit we also had the opportunity to meet Eddie (dad) and Opal (mum), both are lovely dogs so we're expecting great things from the puppy we choose.


We travelled home debating the merits of each puppy and wondering what our trainer, Laurie, will make of them!  Wednesday was quite hectic for Stephen downloading viedos from the camera and converting them into a format we could burn to CD for Laurie to view before she went out of town for the weekend.


Thursday, Stephen got a call at work from Laurie advising that she would choose back spot from the litter, Stephen had a list of pros and cons for each of the shortlisted puppies (back spot and butt spot).  We told Kim that we wanted to take one more look at the puppies before making our final decision ... we had to be quick, she had folks coming on Saturday to pick their puppy.  We decided to take the day off work on Friday, drive down and collect back spot.


Due to the time of day and the necessity of having Kohl with us this morning to take to the groomers, we decided to take him with us.  As it turned out, the weather was so bad that lying in the back of the car for most of the day was proably comparable to lying in a run at Canine College (definitely warmer!).  We stopped as we had done previously in Centralia and arrived at 3.30pm right on schedule.


This time we just focused on 3 puppies, butt spot, back spot and tail spot.  However, Kim soon removed tail spot as it was getting confusing!  We were now down to two: butt spot (our pick first visit) and back spot (Lauire's pick).  After careful consideration and advice from Kim, we decided to bring home butt spot.  He has nice confirmation but has a few white hairs on his chest and under his chin (the breed standard says that the dog must be all one color), Kim thinks they will disappear by the time he's 6 months.  Also, as she was tidying him up for us to bring home, she told us that she thought he might turn out to be black rather than blue  ... oh well. Learn more about the difference in coat colors here: http://arpeggiopoodles.tripod.com/poodlecoatcolors4.html.  We left just before 5pm with Sky (and Kohl) for the long journey home.


The journey was horrible, driving rain and then snow just north of Tacoma.  It was so bad at one stage that we seriouslly didn't now whether we were going to make it home :-(  Luckily it warmed up to above freezing and by the time we were nearing Seattle, it had turned back to rain.  We didn't get in until about 10pm, the animals still had to be walked and/or fed.  Needless to say, we didn't get to bed until late.


Sky slept in one of the cat carrying crates and woke me twice during the night to let me know that he needed to pee.  He was very good and did his buisness as soon as I took him out of the crate, however, it took him about 20 mins to settle down once he was back in the crate.  He got very cross and frustrated at having to be in there on his own!  This morning when he woke and I brought him downstairs, he peed and pooped almost immediately.  Althought it's going to take a while to housetrain an 8 week old puppy, he wants to be clean and is willing to please so I don't think it will take too long (I hope not anyway!).


This evening we were planning go to see the PNB production of the Nutcracker in Seattle, I purchased the tickets some time ago and yesterday lined a good friend up to pet sit.   Linda arrived for pet sitting duties with the news that it was snowing and that the temperature was around freezing.  As we were already changed and ready to leave we decided to go ahead with our plans but as we started driving down the road we discovered that both the snow and the temperature were both still coming down :-(  So as not to endanger ourselves, or Linda (who would have to drive home later this evening), we decided to turn around and abandon our plans for the evening.  We were thankful that we got home safely with our new boy yesterday and didn't want to risk getting stranded in the bad weather this evening.  So, we came home and played with the puppy in the knowledge that Linda got home safe and sound.


It's late now, everyone is asleep Stephen and two cats on the sofa, Kohl on his blankie and Sky in his ex-pen so I think it is time for bed!