Puppies! Open Your Eyes (Just Another Day In The Life Of A Dog Lover)

You know it is really hard when you are waiting for something to happen. You tend to check things more often thinking that it will happen sooner. Like putting a pot on the stove to boil, we all know that a watched pot never boils, and yet we keep watching. That is how I feel now. Waiting for these beautiful babies eyes to open and see the world.

I have had pups open their eyes as early as 9 days and as late as 17 days, so it is always a waiting and guessing game with pups I guess. They seem to really come alive once those eyes open. They really have to see every part of their pen, checking out every fold and crease in blankets, and toys are sooo much fun. I wait soo impatiently for their eyes to open so I can begin their training on how to stand and where to put their feet when standing for shows.

If someone had only told me the sorrows of breeding when I got started, I think I would have run the other direction as fast as I could. There are so many heart breaks that just seem to keep coming. And you can't seem to throw enough money at a problem to make it go away. But there will always be the sweetest times that could only be experienced by someone with a love of their breed that cannot be changed. When that pup takes his first steady steps out of his nest into that big world, and you run over to make sure he doesn't fall, your heart just kind of grows with the knowledge that this tiny life was the product of many hours of research, pain, tears, and work. Without you this pup may not have ever come into the world.

This is probably going to be the longest wait ever for me as this is a very important litter in my lines.

Sometimes I sit back and think about everything that a breeder does in a day and think to myself, how do I find the time??? There is sooooo much that has to be done every day, that you sometimes loose track of how important the little things are, like taking that 5 minutes that turned into 15 playing in the puppy pens with them.

I did just that today. I let my outside life go a bit and sat in the pens just spending time with the new pups, two of them have opened their eyes, so they are beginning to track you and engage. When you spend time with the pups, time just seems to fly by, like you just sat down, and it has been an hour. I am very lucky to be able to work from home and not get fired over such things. I just don't know how they do it, the breeders that go off to work and don't have the time to just stop and smell the puppy breath.

Breeding is a passion for me and I want nothing more than to take the time to memorize pedigrees and to know the medical history of as many of the dogs in them as possible. I got really lucky and have stumbled my way upon a few really great breeders that have been there for me when I almost fell on my face a time or two (ok, ok or more than that). I have also had the opportunity to have a few dogs from the Davishall line that I have added to my lines. I also have made a great friend in Wade Davis and I am working hand in hand with him to build my version of the perfect Chihuahua.

I guess that today was just another day in the life of a dog lover...