Estee's First Litter and Pros&Cons

Estee's "G" puppies are finally home with their BKs. *big grin* Here are pictures of all of them. There's one black pup amongst the five yellow pups. There appears to be 3 males and 3 females though one of the names isn't really gender specific so I'm not too entirely sure. With that said, yes, I do know all of the names. But, I'm not going to post them up as I don't want to ruin the surprise for any raiser who might be getting an Ozzie/Estee puppy. None of my names were used *sad face* but they're all great names. There's one little girl's name that I absolutely LOVE!



The little black puppy of her litter. This is the one that isn't gender specific, but I think he's male. 

A little yellow female. She's got a wonderful name.

A little yellow male. He looks like the biggest to me.

Another yellow male. He's got my favourite out of the male names.

A yellow female. She's darker than the rest.

A little, yellow female. She's the one with my favourite name.

 Aren't they so cute! And they're so little. I think they're either just under a month or just over a month. If I didn't have puppy fever before I definitely have it now. Speaking of puppy fever...

Yesterday I couldn't focus on studying. I have an exam today and an exam tomorrow and studying much more seems a little pointless. I'm going to do as well as I'm going to. That doesn't mean that I'm not doing a last minute cram session tonight with a friend for the Psychology exam, but last night was really hard for me. So, I got to thinking about what I should do about a puppy of my own. Since I couldn't make a final decision I did what I always do when I just can't decide. I made a Pros&Cons list to clearly understand where I stand at this moment. Here's a photo of my pros and cons list.

My pros and cons list.

 My pros are "German Shepherd possiblity, A healthy distraction, puppy breath, expercise again, stress reliever, get it off my mind, it's who I am, and lif is boring without a puppy. My cons are "Needing to balance between school and puppy, 4 hour roleplaying games, little space in the flat, social life, the costs, the heart ache, and I would have to do more cleaning." As you can see, the pros outweigh the cons by number if only by one. At this moment I'm trying to decide if the cons outweigh the pros in gravity though. I've raised 3 puppies and I know how much time it takes...especially a baby puppy. But I know I'm up to the task. What did I decide? Well, it really is a tie so I decided to email Graham after my exams are finished and say something like, "I would really like a puppy of my own and I think I'm ready for one. I've been thinking about it and the best time for me to get a puppy would be at the beginning of my spring break which starts March 23. But I would like to puppysit once before fully committing. Would it be possible to put me on a list for a puppy for the end of March but take me off if, after I puppysit, I realise that it's not the right time for a puppy full time? Then the next best time would be beginning of June since it's the start of summer break and I'll be here for all but 3 weeks of the summer." I'm also going to say, as much as it kills me, that I would prefer an older puppy. One that is done with shots and can go everywhere...but I also want anything but a Lab. Haha! So, I could to a baby puppy if that's necessary for a not Lab. But know that the longest I'll have to wait for a puppy is five months is really exciting!

Also, I'm having trouble with my comments on this blog. I can view them, but I can't reply to them. Someone (can't quite remember the name right now) asked me to send them my email address so they could invite me to their blog. I'm just gonna post it up here for you since I can't find you on my followers and I can't reply to the comment. dramaqueenEEA92@gmail.com

The Decision is Made

Again, things are just sort of popping up that I can post about. This is great!

I made the decision yesterday that I would go home for a little bit of winter break. I'll be home for 10 days which should be enough time to give some lovin' to all of my girls. I'm pretty excited to see Hilly again. I hear she's been a...not a bad puppy, but a rowdy one. I, as all puppy raisers, like to think that it's because she misses me soooo much that she's acting out. More likely that she's just an 18 month old lab who does naughty things from time to time because it's the labby nature. haha!

Anyway, that's my big news for today. I chose my own puppy to a puppy I don't know. I'm still going to see if I can puppy sit for a little over the winter break because I'll be home for about 2 weeks and most of it I'm thinking my flatmate will be away. So, it would be nice to have a puppy for some of that time.

Tomorrow the second set of "T" brothers arrive! Can't wait to hear what names he get! I'm really liking Trystan, Tibbs, and Toby right now, but I have a whole list in my notebook.

FlipFlopping

I keep flip flopping over whether or not I should stay here for the winter holiday or fly back to California. You see, I could go home and see Hilly and Arwen and Rosie and meet all the new puppies we've got in our group or I could stay here and I have a puppy to puppy sit all winter break. I think staying here and puppy sitting would be a great opportunity for me to learn how to handle a puppy here as I'll have it for a long period of time. BUT! I miss Hilly a lot. I would very much like to see her and I would feel horrible picking a dog I don't even know over my own Hilly-Bean. It's not like I won't be able to puppy sit during next semester but on the other side of that coin, it's not like Hilly won't be there over the summer.

Any suggestions, comments, advice?

Bait Bag Contest/House

Alright, first on the list of "back log". Do you guys remember, way back when, when Mimi and CC Cabana told us about homemade bait bags and within that post was a possibility of winning a homemade bait bag? I know, it was a while ago, but try very hard to remember. You do remember? Well good, cause guess who won the homemade bait bag? That's right! Yours truly here did.

I'm pretty excited about this for various reasons. The first of which is because when I went home over Winter holiday and had Rocco for that month I, of course, had to use my old bait bag. Now, I seem to have bad luck with the bait bags given to me by my club. My first one the clip that allows you to attach it to your body snapped off and the adjustable belt went missing. So, for a while I had to use a very old bait bag that had no external pockets or anything. It was just a bag for kibble. The second one I got (and the one I used for Rocco throughout his time with me), one of the butterfly joints broke almost immediately when I tried to open it. It's not like I wrenched it open or anything. The clips but just have been brittle or something. It didn't really cause a problem so long as I didn't flip the bag completely upside down. If I did, there would be kibble everywhere so I ended having to be real careful where I set it down in the car otherwise I would spent the first 10 minutes of an outing trying to collect all of the kibble that fell from the bag.

The second reason I'm pretty excited about this actually has to do with the second on my list of "back log" posts. I finally found a place to live next year. *FINALLY* I'll be moving in with my friend Lisa. Unfortunately, we couldn't find a four bedroom house in Aberdeen so we did have to split into two groups of two. So, besides the fact that Lisa and I have a really nice flat for next year in a really nice neighbourhood for relatively cheap there's more icing to the cake. The landlady is very, very nice so I told her that I was hoping to raise for Guide Dogs here. Guess what she said! If you guessed that she said that I was crazy for wanting to do that and that she wouldn't allow it in her flat you'd be DEAD WRONG. :D She basically said the opposite. She said that she's very excited that I wanted to do this and that she'd give me full permission to have a puppy (so long as it was a Guide Dog Puppy in Training) while I was leasing from her. Pretty cool huh!? So, this means that I'll be able to use the bait bag for more than just the three months I'm home with my new transfer puppy. I won't have to pack it away for 3 years while I'm here in Scotland. I can bring it with me and use it with the puppy I get here.

To be completely honest, I'm not sure if I will be raising a puppy right away. I know that I'm going to wait until at least mid-October to get the puppy so that Lisa and I have time to settle down in the flat. I want the puppy to be at least 4 months of age by my exams in January so that I don't have to be taking him/her out every 15 minutes to go potty. If I get the puppy in October that solves the exam problem and it also means that I'll have my schedule for next year and I'll have gone through a month or so of classes so I'll know when I can come home to feed the puppy and relieve it because the puppy probably won't be ready to sit through hours of lectures. Of course, puppies do have a wonderful way of surprising us, but still...a 6 week old puppy (yes, puppy walkers get the puppies at 6 weeks here. Whereas back home GDB doesn't usually start sending out puppies until they're 8 weeks of age) in a lecture could be a bad thing. If by October I don't think I'm ready for a puppy I'll wait until the first of December to get one so that I have a month to spend with the puppy while I'm not in classes. The puppy would just have to deal with being in the crate for 2 hours while I took an exam in January. But, it really is up in the air. I want to get a job as well so that I can pay for frivolous things like DVDs and clothes and that means I'd have to look for a job that would allow me to bring a puppy into work. So, lots of stuff to consider, but I'll probably try it. Or, I'll get a job from September to December then get a puppy. Yeah...still up in the air but I'm sure I'll work something out that'll allow me to use this cool homemade bait bag for years to come.

Soooo...

Thanks Mimi and Cabana! I can't wait to see the Bait Bag!