Four Months! Wildflower Updates Begin

Mary-Ann Sontag September 26, 2020

The Wildflowers are celebrating four months on the earth! We begin our updates with Zeus. Penny sends along this report:

“Wow, how the time has flown! Hard to believe we are at 4 months old already.

Zeus is doing great and got a perfect report from the vet. Weighing in at 33 pounds, he is always ready for his next meal and continues to love his mix if Orijen, raw, and Balance It recipes.

We are so happy to have the chance to take Puppy Kindergarten with Georgia. She is a wealth of knowledge and positive reinforcement, and Zeus relishes the opportunity to play with Buttercup and his fellow classmates.

Speaking of classmates, Zeus provides lots of support to the kiddos with their remote learning offering plenty of kisses and curiosity. Zeus is of course featured in all of Ada's family drawings and has made appearances in Kindergarten and 3rd grade Zoom meetings to everyone's delight.

Zeus's favorite activities are chewing on bully sticks, morning bone time, cuddling/gnawing on his new pink pig toy, and Kong chomping. He also loves exploring the yard, racing through his tunnel, practicing his tricks, and helping let the chickens out of the coop in the morning. Nap times all over the house, especially at my feet while I telework, are also at the top of his list.

We continue to find ways to socialize Zeus and introduce him to new friends. One day we took Zeus to the Olympic National Park Visitor Center and he was a real hit with the park rangers and visitors!

Zeus brings us so much joy and we couldn't be happier!

Best wishes to all, and Happy Fall!”

You know what brings me so much joy? Seeing what a wonderful life Zeus is having with his perfect family.

Thank to Penny and the rest of Zeus’s humans — and also to Buttercup’s Peeps for warmly embracing these new members of our Berner community.

Pozy Gets a Shot

Mary-Ann Sontag September 25, 2020

Yesterday — just shy of four months old — Pozy finally got her first ever vaccination.

I did plan to delay it but not quite THAT much. We have had a wee bit of drama with the clinic where my veterinarian worked (note past tense) and so I waited until she landed at a new clinic.

In order for Pozy to be vaccinated as I wanted — and yes, I always discuss The Plan with our veterinarian — I had to order an entire flat of the vaccines…

I sent some to Lupine, Clover, and Chase and will save the rest to send home with the future litter.

At some point I have a lot to say about new puppies, vaccinations, veterinarians, and critical thinking — you would not think it would be hard to avoid over-vaccination but surprisingly, it is.

Pozy weighed 32 pounds yesterday and is in excellent health. She was her usual kind and friendly self at the new clinic — what a wonderful puppy she is!

Pozy and her siblings will be four months old tomorrow and you know what that means! We start four-month-Wildflower-updates tomorrow. FUN.

Have an amazing day, all things considered.

More on Pandemic Life

Mary-Ann Sontag September 23, 2020

It is important to acknowledge the ways in which Pandemic Life is tough — not to have an endless Pity Party but to be able to accurately assess and respond to our own needs. If I do not understand why and how this is a challenging time, I will overwork my 100 Little Soldiers, and that never goes well.

My Pandemic Life motto is Dial Back.

This means things are undone — without shame and guilt. After all, why give Little Soldiers a well-deserved break if you are just going to beat them up for what is undone?

I also like to focus on what I can still do.

It is not about finding bright sides or silver linings to a pandemic that has killed 200,00 Americans — there isn’t one.

But there are opportunities. Challenges, after all, always bring along an invitation for transformation.

If all goes according to plan, I will finish Claire’s CD this year at long last — and breed her. Staying home has allowed me to focus on her training, and it is going well. I am excited to show her.

That is my plan — we will see what the Universe has to say about all that. 2020, after all, seems to involve a particularly malevolent Trickster and so it is best to have only loose attachments to our plans.

Pandemic Life offers obstacles at a time when our abilities to find creative solutions to achieve plans are understandably low. Dialing back means that I am not also trying to do sixteen other things with my dogs at this time. Instead, awareness of limits means I can focus my energy and time on my priorities, understanding that 50 of my 100 Little Soldiers are on pandemic duty and simply not available to help with Normal Life and my typical overachieving hopes and wishes.