New Development!
Since I first developed my Prospective Puppy Owner Questionnaire I’ve wanted to have it available online for easy use. I have finally converted it into a PDF form and am trying out a new service from Adobe.com. If you are interested in a Lore Samoyeds puppy, the first step is to contact me so we can talk a little bit about what the breed is like (if you don’t already know) and how much work is involved in raising a puppy. The next step is to complete the application/questionnaire which is where this is headed. This service may or may not work out, but here’s the form,  available for your use and hopefully easy submittal once you’ve got it done. And if you hate it, you can always ask for me to email the form to you another way. But please try clicking here and see if it will work for you!

I know, the first thing you want to know is when puppies are born (answered above: hopefully sometime this spring) and how much they cost. Each breeder sets their own prices and they tend to vary throughout the country. It takes a lot of money and a lot of time to produce a litter of puppies and raise them to be your future best friends, ready to take on the world. I want to keep the price of these puppies within reach of a typical family but I also don’t want to lose my own shirt doing so. So the cost of a puppy is set at the best point where I can make it work financially from both points of view. I assure you (and the IRS if they are watching this page ) that I’ve yet to actually turn a significant “profit” from this labor of love. If you want to know the prices for this forthcoming litter, please drop a line. It’s not cheap, but you do get the best quality I can produce and a lifetime of support. There is no price difference based on gender or show/pet quality. Hey, each puppy take the exact same amount of cash and time to raise and therefore are valued identically!

On November 18, 2011, Art Wolfe, renown wildlife photographer, came to the house to film a short introduction to his latest book “Dogs Make Us Human.” So how did I get so lucky as to get this to happen? Well, I’m also a hobby photographer and was at the Digital Photography Expo in early November, justifying my attendance because of my upcoming trip to Iceland (which was great!). I went on the day that Art was speaking as I wanted to hear him. When purchasing his book and getting it inscribed, I had to say that I simply HAD to have this book because I’m a dog breeder. The series of questions that resulted from that comment went something like this:

You’re a breeder? What kind of dogs?
Samoyeds.

What do they look like?
Fuzzy white sled dogs.

How many do you have?
Five.

Are they friendly?
Yes, very.

Do they get along with each other?
Yes, except when the girls are in season then all bets are off. (said with a smirk on my face)

Where do you live?
Covington area.

Can we come and film at your place with your dogs?
Sure!

A flurry of emails back and forth to get the date set and me trying to clean the dogs up a bit before their movie debut, and it all went super well! It’s well known that movie stars don’t like to work with children and animals as they often get upstaged by them, and this video shoot was no exception. The dogs were all milling around, looking for attention and trying to shove the other one(s) out of the way. Art was bribing them with cat food and I was off camera shoving them back into the frame so you get this ever-shifting sea of white fur.

The south end of a north facing dog is Kate, Lore’s Morning Glory, who was just shy of 6 months old. Annie, her mom, was Art’s favorite and she showed off her recent scar from her spay surgery. Annie developed a case of pyometra and I had no choice but to spay her to save her life.

Oh, and at one point you get to see Morrigan (the old lady in the pack) and she was showing off her beautiful biscuit spots. Sure, Sammies are generally white or mostly white, but biscuit is beautiful too! Mo’s lovely apricot-tinged biscuit spots look fantastic on this video clip! If the imbeded clip doesn’t work, please click on this link:

http://vimeo.com/32543460

Puppy Loves+Kisses

I know, it’s been far too long since I’ve shared photos and stories.  You always forget how much work it is having puppies!  I’m presented with the choice of either playing with puppies or posting pictures and stories about puppies, but rarely do I have time to do both right now.  Rest assured, the puppy homes will have many more pictures than what I’ve managed to put online.  Good news is, next Saturday I’m enrolled in a Lightroom class which will help (eventually) with my photo management and post processing speed.  That does kind of complicate pups going to their homes next week a little bit but I’m sure we can work around it.

Today was an amazingly BUSY day for the puppies.  It started with an hour+ drive to see the canine eye doctor for their CERF exam.  This exam checks for juvenile cataracts and other eye issues.  I’m very pleased to announce that everybody came through their first eye exam with flying colors!  From there, the pups went on to see the regular vet for a check up, and that went super as well.  These puppies are so fabulously even tempered and even though these were major stressors, they did awesome!

I had arranged for my first breeder evaluation of the pups for this afternoon but an emergency situation would have cut our time short so we’ll be rescheduling, hopefully for Sunday.

Instead of the evaluation, I stopped by my work and let the puppies explore a brand new location!  I had many co-workers come out and play with pups including one who was just stopping by on her day off with her 2 year old daughter.  That’s her pictured here.  My neighbors breed Cairn Terriers — Toto from the Wizard of Oz.  They are really great dogs and I’ve enjoyed living next to other breeders but we’ve had conversations about the distinct differences between our two breeds.  Cairns are not generally good with young children and my neighbors have only ever placed one puppy in a home with a young child….and that wasn’t intentional as when they got the puppy, they didn’t know they were pregnant.  So when I told them that several of my homes have children, we ended up with a facinating conversation.  Sammies, unlike Cairns, are very good family dogs as they are generally very good with children.  Provided, of course, that they’ve been exposed to them.  I think I can safely say these pups have been QUITE well exposed to kids of all ages.

Tomorrow will be another insane day for the babies.  Our local rescue group, Northwest Samoyed Rescue, is holding their annual Rescue Picnic and the puppies will be attending.  Partly for massive socialization, partly so I can purchase collars/leashes/microchips in support of rescue, partly for some breeder evaluations from fellow breeders attending, and partly because I’m a huge supporter of the rescue efforts.  This is one time each year where I get to see many of the dogs that have been adopted out over the years whom I’ve been involved with (directly and indirectly).  Matter of fact, the rescue coordinators for Washington have a dog that I evaluated for place-ability all those many years ago.  I fell in love with Charlie, who at the time was an overly energetic youth full of boundless, joyous energy.  He’s slowing down and in his twilight time, which is heart-tugging for sure, but he remembers me and I get a very special greeting every time.  I’ll also get to see Sam, whom I fostered last year, and Mori, who’s family I did the home check on, and so forth.

Anyway, back to the puppies….  It will be lots of fun for them to be in a new place and meet new dogs and people.  Yes, I’m sure I’ll get more pictures and there will be other shutterbugs taking shots too.  Hopefully there’ll also be some video during the puppy evaluations so some other breeders can remotely weigh in with their thoughts on movement.  Just now need to clone me so I’ve got time on Sunday to get a good, solid posting up here for you all.

As some of you have requested, I’m including a picture of Daddy Higgins.  I know I’ve got some up already but now you don’t have to go paging through to find him.  This was taken last August at the Samoyed Club of Washington State Speciality at the Enumclaw Fairgrounds.  Higgins won’t be back this year as he’s on the east coast at the moment, hopefully making more beautiful Higgins babies!

And because I can’t resist good MudPuppy pictures I’ve decided to show you all what Sammy puppies REALLY look like.  To the left is Yellow Girl with her best “What?!” expression.  This was taken on my birthday last week and I was literally just cleaning out the puppy pen (a daily duty in spite of it being my birthday).  She just walked in, sassy as usual, and plopped herself down right in front of me.  Note that there’s newspaper to the right but linoleum underneath her.  I’m pretty sure I had the newspaper in my hand to put down when she waltzed in, pleased as punch, and flopped down.  It was as if she’d been busy playing and was ready for a quick rest…and well, if it was slightly challenging toward me then that was even better.  When I exclaimed “What were you up to?” I got this look.  And she kept it long enough to grab the ever-ready camera!

Not to be outdone, 2 days later all the pups were in on the game.  Summer puppies are great in that it’s so easy to let them outside to play in the gentle summer weather.  But last week we had some rain.  Which, if you are one of my puppies, is like a gazillion times better than sunshine.  I’ve posted previously that Uncle Chip has been teaching the pups about the importance of digging, but this was even better.  Wet puppies mixed with dry dirt and rambunctious adults more than willing to roll them results in……..

Yeah, they got their first bath later the same day.  Stinkers!  But do note that the third pup from the left in the back has ears almost upright already.  That’s Pink Girl and her ears are already completely up.  That’s pretty early but it makes her a stand out in the pretty department!

Look for some nice head shots of the pups soon.  One of the puppy homes were down last weekend playing with the puppies and they were kind enough to help me get some puppy pictures.  They also helped run interference with that dang bald eagle who kept making periodic appearances looking for a puppy-sized snack.  These guys are growing quickly but aren’t quite out of the eagle-snack-pack size.

Something extremely scary happened today.  While it’s been funny talking about the puppies who have fallen into my small koi pond and the puppy trauma that results from it, this was actually pretty serious.  While a few people were over socializing with the pups in the yard (actually right where this picture was taken) we looked up into the sky.  A bald eagle was circling overhead, probably no more than 30-50 feet above the tops of the trees.  First circle we went “cool, a bald eagle!” Second circle I announced I was not comfortable with the puppies being out.  By the third circle, we were gathering up all the puppies into our arms to carry them inside.  Neighbors are reporting a lot of coyotes this year with several sitings up close and personal.  I don’t worry about the coyotes as the adult dogs would be able to protect the pups, if the coyotes were even bold enough to challenge 4-5 adult dogs.  But raptors are another story.  A bald eagle diving can easily reach 50-75mph in speed and neither people or the adult dogs would be able to protect against that.

So the puppies were brought in for the day much earlier than has been their norm.  I did make a run to Home Depot and Josh helped me carry the puppies to the kennel where I left them in a run with Annie for the hour’s shopping trip.  They will now have to be kenneled while I continue to work on projects around the property if I can’t be paying super close attention to them AND the skies.  I don’t know how long a bald eagle’s memory is, but I don’t want to risk the babies! Oh, and the Home Depot run? Got myself a brand new lithium-ion DeWalt cordless drill. I know, not very girly, but I lu-uuv my power tools! <g>  My poor old cordless drill hasn’t been holding a charge in either battery for a while now and I really need one as I am doing more work on the kennel building.  Since my birthday was yesterday, I was gifted with a Home Depot gift card which went toward the new drill. My dad is so proud.

And now on to the videos!  I’ll try to list them oldest first to newest so you can watch the progression.  But before you start, go make a bowl of popcorn as you’ll be here for a long time!

First up, from June 9th, you can see Red Girl wobbling around, just learning to walk. Amazing what changes in a month! From the next day, a long (sorry!) video of wobbly puppies playing with each other.

Now here we are, June 18th.  Puppies have changed dramatically in what they can do! Of course, being puppies, they are all “Killer Attack Puppies” by nature. They are all learning about playing, chewing, hunting, and generally being furr-ocious!

June 20th and the Yellow Girl is taking on Grandma Morrigan.  I really like Yellow Girl’s spunk and outgoing personality.  She’s definitely NOT afraid to speak her mind and get what she wants! Black Boy, on the other hand, was very reluctant to go outside for the first few days. He’s gotten over it entirely now. Just needed some extra cuddling and reassurance that life was good. But here, he’s coming across as a wimp.  I was filming this thinking, oh great, now the whole world will be able to see my messy patio area, desperate for a good cleaning. Oh well, my life revolves around these puppies right now, the clean house has to wait.

On to June 23rd and you can really see how much more mobile the babies are.  In two of these videos you can see the puppies taking on Naomi. Or it is Naomi taking on the puppies? I’m not completely sure.  Josh is moving out at the end of this month and into his own studio apartment in Seattle.  I’ll miss him lots but I’ll also miss his amazing dog.  Chippy will especially miss her as Naomi has claimed Chip as her own.  He’s NOT allowed to look at other girls (his mom and sisters don’t count) as ‘Omi will clean his clock for even thinking about being “unfaithful!”  The pups will also miss their old-lady black dog.  Note the patio is still grubby….

You still here?  I did warn you this is WAY more video than you probably want but I’m trying to make amends for being so tardy!

Okay, so June 24th and the puppies are getting much more adventerous and venturing further from just the patio area.  Annie has been actively encouraging them to try walking uphill a little bit. Sounds simple, right? But up until now, all the pups have walked on have been very flat surfaces.  Jumping (really, tripping) over hoses or any other small change in the ground surface is as big an elevation change as they’ve tried. But now, the hillside is a grand new adventure! The second hillside playing video is from June 29th where you can see improvements in motor skills!

More from June 29th but by now I’ve been trying to teach the puppies about grass and getting them practiced enough, and comfortable enough, with going further and further away from their “known world.”  It took a few days of calling “Puppy! Puppy! Puppy!” to get everybody to follow me.  I’d get 3 or 4 of them willing to venture out, but there would always be a few hold outs not quite willing to travel so far from what they knew.  But here, they have all happily learned about grass and are playing and exploring.  And most importantly, learning.  I must apologize upfront for Emma.  She’s been super-duper excited about the puppies and she just loves to bark at them!  You’ve been warned about those particular clips…

And now, I’m FINALLY caught up with the videos!  July 2nd and the pups have mastered lawn, gravel, and hillsides.  They are now learning about jumping and leaping and most importantly (from Uncle Chippy’s point of view) digging.  Chippy was The Excavator in his litter, never letting his good looks get in the way of getting down and dirty.  And as every good Samoyed should know how to dig holes, this is an important life lesson.  Sorry folks, I only wish I could have them skip learning this bit.

Yummy!

First Taste

Squeezed In And Happy

Blue Boy with Grace

A New Address!

The New Digs

Tuesday evening saw the puppies moving to a new location.  The whelping box had been set up in my office to allow for an easy way of keeping the area quiet and away from the hubub of life and the other dogs. But now that they are growing so fast, it was time to move them to the main part of the house. For now, and it won’t be for much longer, they remain in the whelping box but now reside in the breakfast nook in the kitchen.  Soon enough I’ll be getting them out of the box and into a larger area.  I kept the whelping box cordoned off for the first 24 hours so Annie could get a measure of comfort with the other dogs interacting with her charges, but they are all getting peek in on by the adult dogs now.  Grandma Morrigan is especially pleased to see them, as is Josh’s girl, Naomi. You can see the Flying Saucer pan in this shot though it’s back to the cake pan for the moment.

I will have to wait on fixing this crazy formatting.  The computer and I are NOT getting along this evening.

Kissing….or Bluffing A Sneak Attack?

Puppy Wrestle-Mania has really begun!  Pups are interacting more each day and the play time is extremely sweet.  I can’t even say it’s furr-ocious yet as they are all still pretty Weebley.  They are doing their best growling and barking but I have to say, it’s not quite there.

But they are growing into it!

Today’s feature picture looks like two puppies kissing.  I can hear the “Awwwww’s” from here.  But it’s not. A split second later, one pup has the other pup’s snout captured in their mouth.  I hope I can catch that either via still or video as it’s really funny!  The wrestling matches now last 5-10 minutes before they all pass out and sleep for a couple hours.  Soon enough, the puppy knock-down, drag-out matching will be more sustained.

This is a critical time in puppy development as they learn to interact with others and learn motor skills.  They are also more able to pee and poop on their own without stimulation from Annie.  Soon enough, the puppy playing will also start teaching them about self control and restraint as puppy teeth are starting to erupt.  That may mean Annie will start looking to wean them but for now, I’m letting them nurse.  Annie is still willing and so far only one puppy has shown any interest in Annie’s food so I don’t think they are quite ready yet to try solids.  One nice thing about where we live now are the neighbors who have dairy goats.  I’m going to get some fresh goat milk to use with the puppy mush as it’s a great source of protein and calcium.

Wrestle-Mania

Annie Nursing

A little more action shot for you as well.  No, they just don’t move very fast yet, which you can see in the video below. They still aren’t really aware of the toys in the whelping box but they will be soon enough. They are now still just tripping hazards for them as they learn how to walk.  I just can’t get over how fast they are growing.  Josh came back today after being gone since last Wednesday and he was blown away at how big they are.  I brought out Black Boy and a fair number of Fatty comments were made.  Well, he is rather sausage-y.  Heck, every day when weighing him I call him my Hubba Bubba Tubba Chubby Puppy Love.  I know, not very dignified but he IS rather larger than everybody else. You can see how much larger everybody is in the shot with Annie nursing.  She’s finding it easier to sit up to provide access to those hungry mouths!

Puppy Pillow – or is this Puppy Spooning?

As of this evening, the pups are all “graduates” of the Bio-Sensor Early Neurological Stimulation program!  Yay!  They all responded in varying ways to this stimuli-introducing program and being anal-retentive like I am, I’ve kept copius notes.  Even noted on the day where two puppies actually pooped on me during the work.  I was this close to posting something entitled “Holy Crap” and making a lot of potty humor jokes but I restrained myself.  For those of you who know me, you know how hard that really was.

This morning the pups and Annie all got their first deworming though I’m not convinced that Red Girl got her full dose.  She was decidedly not impressed with the Nemex and was very vocal in questioning why I was cramming a plastic syringe in her mouth when she was used to much softer things.  Normally she’s a very sweet girl but she was not happy.  Well, that’s another reason why you worm frequently I suppose.

This morning also saw the introduction of puppy toys into the whelping box. They don’t know what it’s all about quite yet but since the pups are all really starting to begin interacting with each other as well as Annie, they will soon discover toys.  But for now, they are new obstacles for them to bump into while practicing walking.  I’ve even added a rolled up towel and folded the fleece a bit to ensure the surface is not even or level.

Very soon I’ll start the stream of (eager) volunteers as well as puppy buyers to assist in the early socialization.  Their eyes are all open and I noticed earlier that Purple Boy and Yellow Girl (yes, my Husky Colors!) have teeny little cracks in their ear canals which means they are starting to hear sounds.  Nobody else was quite there but the ears are standing further off their heads as you can see in the photo taken last night.  Very soon they will all be able to hear, so by the weekend I’m sure they’ll all be hearing just how loud their protests can get!  Not too far away is their big move from the quiet of my home office, which is somewhat separated from the rest of the house, and into the main living area of the house.  They’ll get to smell dinner cooking, watch movies, look out the windows and everything.

And I promise, I’ll try and find more time for pictures and capture some of the Weebles Wobbling around the whelping box.  They are getting so much stronger and agile every day, but that doesn’t mean they can actually truly walk yet.  It’s super fun to watch though and the very beginnings of puppy wrestling are starting.  Now that will be some entertaining video!

Once they hit the yard, hold on to your collective hats!  I have no idea how I’ll be capturing that. Or them.  Right now I’ve got the old goat yard which has a fence around it giving a more controlled area but since I have no goats, it’s really overgrown.  I was trying to mow it a couple weeks ago and killed (and I mean dead-dead-dead) the lawnmower by running into a grass-hidden tree stump.  I guess it’s a good thing the gate is too narrow to let me drive the lawn tractor in….  I guess I’ll have to work very hard on making my still-planned dog yard enclosure around the kennel.  Otherwise the pups have about 2 acres to explore and that’s just a photographer’s nightmare.  Don’t think the pups will see it that way though.

You ARE Holding My Baby Carefully, Right?

Well, not really.  Lazy that is.  The babies are growing perhaps even faster than the weeds in my yard, and that’s saying something!  So I know I was promising some more mug shots this weekend but I’m just going to have to disappoint.  Sorry! Just ran out of time to take them…I do need sleep afterall!  I still have to get today’s puppy weights taken and do one of the last days’ worth of Bio Sensor early neurological stimulation and then change out the puppy bedding.  Oh, and trim puppy nails as they are growing fast too!

To the left are my two nephews who came by yesterday for a quick visit.  Annie wasn’t so sure that their skills in holding her charges was quite up to snuff, but being a good girl, only gave them dirty looks.

Puppies have also developed a rather unique way of nursing.  With several of them topping the 2 pound mark, there simply isn’t as much room to squeeze into at the milk bar, so I’m seeing more of the creative positioning shown here.

A Unique Nursing Form

And of course, some more video.  I sure wish I could figure out why the stupid camcorder has such a hard time maintaining focus but whatever.

As I’ve mentioned, the pups are maturing every second and that means their motor skills are improving leaps and bounds.  Just a few short days ago they were blind and deaf, only able to skooch around trying to smell when Annie came into the whelping box.  Now they can walk (sort of), see, and some are probably getting hints of sound too as I’m seeing the ear canals starting to open up.  With the vision, burgeoning hearing, and more muscle control comes loads of new interaction with each other, with people, and with Annie.  Puppy toys are going to have to be added very soon as they are just about ready to start learning about them too!

So today’s video clips include some puppy playing, frantic calls with the arrival of the milk bar, twitching dreams, and one puppy already learning what a good scratch on the tummy feels like thanks to the neighbor girl’s skilled fingers.

And I should add here WAY TO GO CANUKS! Josh has created a monster with introducing me to hockey but what a year to become a new fan of the game with the local team (okay, it’s across an international boundary but still only a few hours away) in the Stanley Cup as a clear favorite to win!

Annie as a puppy with her dad, Conor

I am teasing with a picture of Annie taken when she was just a few months old.  She loved teasing her Pop, Conor, and he loved it.  She would jump all over him, bouncing off his head and just generally being rotten.  But since Conor’s puppy name was “Evil Brat Puppy From Hell” he deserved a little razzing from his kids.  No, don’t worry, though I give my dogs names like that, and Uncle Chip’s other moniker “Evil Dog” they don’t have a temperament problem. Sams are mischievous to a fault and they deserve the name calling as they run around the house/yard with your undies in their mouth, proudly showing off to the neighborhood…..

I know I’ve promised more head shots, and I’ll still try and get some this weekend, but my sister and nephews were just here and I took some video.  Still shots too, and I’ll work on those later (after Game 2 of the Stanley Cup, of course!)  But for a quick teaser, here’s the puppies nursing (wow, they still don’t do much else) and my sister, nephews and some of me talking in the background.  Technology wasn’t my friend as what I thought I was recording earlier, I wasn’t. Sigh.  But there’s a few funny moments in this one though the Weebles wobbling as they worked their way to Annie moments before was funny too.  I’m sure I’ll get some of that soon enough.

You’ll note that the pig rails are gone already.  Last night the pups were either crawling on them or stuffing themselves under them and raising them up off the ends.  So with that, I decided they were done.  Pulled two out last night and the other two this morning.

Puppies are also getting bigger and more mature all the time.  It’s really warm in here, now that Spring has arrived with a hint of Summer.  But they are finding 75 degrees too warm and most are seeking out the cool floor underneath the fleece.  Sammies are an arctic breed after all!