Check out our new feature, the Dog of the Week!

Every week, we’ll pick out one dog staying with us, and tell you about them, how they’re doing, how they spend their time, who their friends are, etc.

This week, we picked a really fun dog to have around, Bella!

Like a lot of Labradors that stay with us, Bella likes to swim. In fact, about 30 seconds after she got here, Bella was completely soaked after jumping in the pond and swimming in circles. It’s clearly her absolute favorite thing to do while she’s here. She likes swimming so much, we had to fit her with one of our special unstained “Swimmer’s Collars” because our regular collars were turning her hair red!

That’s not all she spends her time doing though. She has lots of friends, and she’s very social. She’s also a sweetheart, and always comes to see us and wants some attention. Bella likes to jump up sometimes when she’s saying hello to some of us, so we’re correcting her for that. Bella’s soaking wet all the time from swimming, and nobody likes a greeting from a dog when it involves a wet shirt!

When he’s not sleeping, Bella’s best friend is Huxley, a Mastiff puppy. Yes, he’s a puppy. Huxley’s going to grow up to be GIGANTIC!

That’s all for Bella, come back next week to see our new Dog of the Week!

Whenever time, funding, and creativity permit, we like to make improvements to the beauty and functionality of the ranch. Here’s the latest batch of improvements we’ve made!

Kirk loves Flagstone. A Lot. It’s one of his favorite type of stone to work with, because it’s easy to put down, doesn’t require much maintenance, and looks fantastic. When he initially designed the play yard, he wanted to have a gravel area as a transition from the grass on the outside to the inside. The gravel cuts down on mud when it’s raining, and some dogs prefer it at potty time. It’s a high traffic area, so just grass up to the door probably wouldn’t last long anyway. Some dogs however, don’t care for it, preferring to go all the way around the gravel area to get to the grass.

So here’s what he came up with, a Flagstone walkway!

But what do the dogs think? You could ask them, but they’re sleeping.

Welcome back to Week 4 of Laverne & Shirley!

This week, in addition to eating more and more solid-esque food, the puppies are learning to socialize with other dogs.  We spoke at length to our vet about what is the right age to give them away.  They still have a lot of learning to do, and many child-like phases of development. Just last week, they found their “voice” and were very noisy. They would just wail and cry, for no other reason than to experiment with making sound.

This week, they are learning about dog “manners” and what is appropriate and not appropriate. Things like sharing the water bowl, and when other dogs want to play, and when they don’t. They also need to learn appropriate play-biting, sometimes they bite hard!

Vera has been VERY patient with them, she likes babies.

The hose is FASCINATING!

Here’s our video update for this week! You can see the girl’s food becoming more solid, and now they eat with other dogs moving about around them.  See you next week!