Espresso on her day in the forest with the growen ups

This is how the gang looked at the beginning of the week. 15 babies in one whelping box. Clever if you can see them all.

Still 10 happy bouncy babies left making us smile. I cant believe how fast time has gone! This is Yellow giving aunty Kiwi a kiss.

And this is Yellow dressed to advertise himself as being such a sweet boy and come and get me hahahahaha. I think Yellow found it a bit undignifying but sometimes its just to irresistible not to do “undoggy” things with them.

On Thursday Blix left home so Friday we “only” had 14 pups to take to the town shopping street.
Most of us had 2 puppies. The whole idea of “puppy socialization” is to let the pup do the walking and investigating and you follow them. Thus it was not practical to put both on the ground at once as pups never go the same way. So with one pup held the other was put down till the “ground pup” tiered and then you could swap. I have to give the puppy walkers great credit, they did really well!

Once we got all of 50 meters further (you’d be surprised how long it takes to get that far with 14 pups) the pups were all tiered out and we stopped at a terrace to drink coffee. The things we have to do to socialize our pups, life is hard sometimes ;-). Oh I have to mention that the weather was absolutely perfect, we were so lucky!

The pups slept…..

And the pups started to wake up….

And off we went again. Untangling leashes was somewhat of a magic trick sometimes.

But we they got them organized in a jiffy.

Many people stopped and talked again along the 50 meters back. We all proudly told everyone what breed the dog was, how big they grow, what sort of job they are bred to do…. And so the questions kept coming and the answers flowed just as easily back.
Espresso decided to take things into her own "hands" to make her sister walk faster.
Stip investigated a shopping basket from a kind passerby. These pups really don’t suffer from shyness hahaha.
And then it was back to the car and home to sleep for an hour or so before waking up and being the active terrors again as if the whole exhausting afternoon hadn’t even happened…. Where do these Lagotto pups get their never ending energy from?

There is always a lot to tell but not enough time to write it all down.

The biggest news today is that the first puppy has left the Kakapo nest.

The first is Blix. Her name now is Rowi, quite an honor for “my Rowi” to have a puppy named after her!
Blix's pedigree name is "Vida Vigilia Dot of the Kakapo Nest"
A happy day but also a little sad. The first to leave is perhaps the hardest but I know she has gone to a wonderful home and I am looking forward to hearing how her first night went. This is always the most nerve racking for me. Will she settle in, will she sleep though the night, will the others in the family all click?

“New Rowi’s” owner knew I was bursting to know how things went so I already have photos of the pee pee stop on the way home which I have to share with you cos I think them so cute.

Rowi is very lucky to have an instant big sister called Layca. She sure looks like Blix’s mum Dot!