Boris Arrives

Photo:  Boris, along with 2 other American Guinea Hog piglets.  Before those 2 were delivered to Crystal Lake.

So much going on. 

I'm going to tell you about our top-secret, 3 state, 4 breeder, 7+ piglet swap.

It all started 5 or 6 weeks ago, when two breeders posted their piglet information on the facebook page for American Guinea Hogs.  I contacted both of them, because Miss Beatrice needs a boyfriend and we hadn't been able to buy a boar for her yet.

One breeder (Josh) was in Wisconsin and had piglets with a great pedigree that was very similar to Bea's.  There is a small genetic pool to choose from, but it's better to get a mate for your pig that has different names on its pedigree, to make the inbreeding co-efficient percentage as low as possible.  So the piglets in Wisconsin were not a good match, even though they were quality piglets.

One (Kate) was in Michigan, and was going to castrate the baby boars soon (meaning, if I wanted one for breeding, I needed to decide sooner rather than later).  I thought that Bea's breeder was still expecting piglets and that I might still be able to get one from him.  I decided to wait and see.....and decided not to get the boar with the pedigree that would be a very nice complement to the genetics we already had in Bea.

Conversations continued on facebook between the first breeder and me.  He wanted new genetics for his herd, and we looked as far away as Tennessee and Oklahoma, whenever someone posted a message about new litters or available pigs.  Nothing was going to work.  I suggested that he contact the second breeder and see if she had what he might need.  And I told him that her boars were castrated already, and that I was sorry I hadn't jumped at the chance to get one from her when I could have.

He messaged back that same day.  "Talked to Kate.  She has a gilt (female) for us.  AND SHE STILL HAS A BOAR!!!"  Yeah, exactly that message.  Exciting!

From there, things snowballed.  Messages flew so fast and furious that it was hard to keep up.  It was a crash-course in Facebook messaging, for me.

A few customers were brought into the conversation, too, over the weeks that we were talking.

  

All the breeders were required to have a vet come out and check the piglets and issue health/travel papers.  Everyone had to check their state's requirements for crossing state lines with their pigs/swine.  Ear tags had to be put in piglet ears for identification.  Pedigree information had to be put together, and the breeders will need to apply for registration with the breed club and then get the official registration to their customers.  Everyone needed to put down a deposit of half the purchase price, and everyone needed to prepay the vet bill and remaining cost for their piglet before they were transported.  A lot of details to cover.

Wandering Peacock Farm in Wisconsin had 3 piglets involved, going to customers in Michigan and one customer who lives 20 minutes from me.

Emancipation Acres had 2 feeder piglets involved (piglets that aren't intended to be breeders, but are intended to be raised to be food), going to Ham Sweet Farm in Michigan.

Ham Sweet Farm had 3 piglets involved, one going to the local customer, one going to Wandering Peacock Farm, and one that we were buying.  Our breeder boar.

There were a couple of promised piglets, as well, which will come from a litter due in October.

Although not all the piglets from the 2 different litters in Wisconsin and Michigan were involved in this crazy scheme, both breeders sold out of their entire litters.  That's an unusual situation, but so exciting for everyone!

So, it came time to put our plan into action at the beginning of this week.

I drove almost to Madison WI to pick up 2 piglets from Josh (Wandering Peacock Farm) and 2 from Erica (Emancipation Acres).  My parents were visiting, and they rode along.  What a nice way to spend a few hours.  Until one of the pigs pooped in their crate, and the stench in the car became almost unbearable.  

Those 4 little piggies got to spend the night at our place, in their travel-crates (dog crates, basically).

The next morning, I changed the straw in their crates, dodging tiny little piglet teeth and keeping my eye on the one piggie who thought he needed to rush at me and bark like a dog.

Heading out to bring those piglets to Michigan the next day, I got about 40 minutes from home and had a flat tire.  Ugh!  But it was OK.  Someone waved at me and told me the tire was going flat, I pulled off the local highway and parked in the shade at a garden center, the location was only a mile away from the mechanic that AAA sent out, and I was on my way again in less than an hour.  It could have been a blow-out on the interstate going 70 miles an hour!

Unfortunately, my GPS routed me straight into downtown Chicago.  For those who don't know this already, I avoid driving in Chicago.  I hate the traffic and the craziness and feeling like I'm in a live-action video racing game.  This time, I stayed remarkably calm, and the piglets slept.

My daughter rode along with me for the rest of the way.  (Even better, she DROVE the rest of the way!)  :)

We met Kate, exchanged piglets in the parking lot of a small brewery, handed off the health certificates and ownership papers for all the piggies, and then headed out.  Kate had the 4 which had ridden through Chicago with us, and we had three from her litters of guinea hogs.

Getting home to the farm after midnight, I left the pigs in the crate, and inside the car.  Mistake!  

Opening the car doors the next morning, it was as if the pig-smell literally rolled out in waves.  You could imagine a thick cloud (like fog) billowing out and pooling around where I was standing.  The car sat with doors and windows open for quite a while.

Josh and his wife came that morning to pick up their little gilt (female) from Kate.  They brought a boar (male) for the local customer.  

We had a nice chat about hogs and feeding barley sprouts and all kinds of other farming-type things.  We talked about how this whole plan had actually worked, only a few glitches, no dishonesty, and even more amazing, all done through Facebook until the day-of transporting.  We had never met each other.  We didn't phone call to set anything up.  We didn't have recommendations from anyone to know that this person or that person was trustworthy.  It was all done of faith that this would work, these people are passionate about their hogs and so am I, these are fellow farmers who won't be scamming the others.....  We didn't have faces to put with the names, or voices to put with the faces, until the day of transportation when two or more of us met to carry out our part of the driving.

Maybe a little naive on our parts, but it worked fabulously.

I delivered the two piglets to the local farmer, Michael that afternoon.  (He was brought into the grand plan by me, when I had happened to meet him at the feed store.  I knew him from before, from talking about White Holland breed turkeys, from conversations about getting guinea hogs 3 years ago....)  We got those 2 little piggies set up in a chicken "tractor", and then I headed home to the one remaining little boar.

His name is Boris.  He will be our breeding boar.  He is very friendly, because his buddies are all gone and he is ever-so-happy to have someone scratch behind his ears.  He already loves Taffy, because she reaches her nose into his confinement area and kisses him on the head.  :)

He has 2 weeks of quarantine time all by himself, and then we will introduce him to the other 3.  Hopefully he's scrappy enough to hold his own against two 6 month olds and Bea, who will do her best to throw her weight around and push him away from the food.  I'll keep an eye on that, no worries.

Welcome, Boris, to the menagerie.  

1 cow, 1 steer

1 house cat

3 pigs (now 4)

3 dogs

4 barn cats

4 geese

5 sheep

6 turkeys

18 chickens

about 20 rabbits

40+ ducks

Laura

Animal Inventory

Things here are reaching the pinnacle, the full-to-overflowing, the when-are-the-numbers-being-downsized point.  This will sound insensitive, and I admit, I would have been horrified a few years ago to read such a matter-of-fact assessment of what was going to the butcher and when.  But it's necessary, not only for the amount of feed we're paying for, but for the number of animals that we can keep healthy through the winter.

Ducklings:  40 ducklings, now full-grown, have all crowded into a 10x10 space that I intended to only keep 12 in at a time.  I set it up so that I could herd the ones I wanted into that space and they couldn't turn around and come out.  The others saw their friends in the enclosure, and conveniently plopped themselves through the fencing and are all now milling around together in close quarters.  

It's much better for the pasture to have that many fewer mouths nibbling the grass and clover, but....I only intended to fatten up a dozen at a time, then move on to the next dozen.  Now the butcher will need to be called, to see if he can take 40 all at once.  Ouch (at $4 per bird, that's a big chunk of money all at once).  But hooray!  The feed they are eating will be no longer be a problem with trying to keep the feed-part of the farm operation supplied.  And the barn will be so much quieter and smell SO much better.  Ducks are messy creatures unless they are kept outdoors.

Target date?  Next week Thursday, all extra duck(lings) should be out of the barn.

What's left?  Only the 2 drakes and 4 hens that started the duckling craziness this spring.

Geese:

I'm debating.  All 3 of the females sat on nests of eggs this year, and there were no goslings.  Why feed all of them plus the gander for another winter.  There is one favorite female (of the gander and also my favorite), and then there are the Screechy Sisters who team-brood a double nest.  

The Screechy Sisters could go, and I wouldn't miss them.  Everyone who visited the farm while they were sitting on their eggs felt the need to kick them to shut them up.  (No-one did, but it was certainly the general sentiment).  I usually don't have that strong a negative reaction towards anything that I care for, but there was no denying it.  They were not a welcome presence this past summer.

Not sure how you can cook 2 year old geese, though.  We'll see what happens there.  Two less mouths to feed if I send them away.  They go through a lot of the poultry grain and feed and we don't really need 4 geese.  

Rabbits:

Sheila's seven babies are 12 weeks old now.  Red's are 9 weeks.  And Sheila is pregnant again.  Fourteen young rabbits with more due in 2 weeks, all the available cage space taken up, mounds of rabbit poo to distribute over the small fenced grazing area by the willow tree, and all those bags of feed that we're going through.  

Twelve weeks is a good processing age, but last year we found that 16 weeks is better for size.

The first batch of rabbits will potentially be going next week when the ducklings go.  We just need to cut down on feed cost and be able to keep the rabbit barn clean(er).

By the beginning of winter (not today, although it feels like it!), we'll have a few babies from Sheila's new litter, but will have only the 2 males and 3 females to feed through the coldest months.

Turkeys:  

There are 6 of them out there right now.  Three will definitely be leaving us in late October.  I haven't decided about the other 3, but I'm not emotionally attached to any of them.  If we have buyers for them, I'll send them away.  It will be easier to not care for turkeys over the winter, although their "gobble" noises whenever something surprises them will be missed.  

Chickens:

The 6 remaining hens from the original flock are still laying eggs for us, but their time is growing short.  The new hens in the new flock will start laying eggs in the spring.  Old hens will be "culled", and with them goes the last chance of the deadly virus transferring to the new flock.

In the new flock, there are 6 roosters.  That spells trouble because there will be bloody fights between them in the future.  We'll have 4 fresh roasters and keep 2 live roosters for breeding next year. 

Sheep:

The one male lamb is destined to be in our freezer and shared with someone else.  Not sure when that is happening yet, but the hay that he is eating may decide the timing.  

The ewe lamb is not up for sale yet, but again, the hay that she'd eat during the winter might decide that, too.  Her registration papers are all set to be mailed in.  She could be put up for sale once she is registered, and I'd save a bit in hay expense plus have about $300 (purchase price) to put back in the feed account.  Hard to pass that up.  We'll see.

Whether we have 2 ewes and one ram, or keep little May and have 4 sheep total, there should be babies in March sometime to start the circle of life all over again.....

Cows:

Charming has been grazing at a friend's place for the summer, and is being prepared for a trip to the butcher in November.  Kind of difficult to think of it that way, but it's the harsh reality.  Our freezer will be full of home-raised, healthy beef to feed our family.  Reality.

Caspian the handsome is still grazing our pasture with his mama, and will be one year old in November.  It will cost quite a bit to feed him through the winter, but the plan is to keep him past the point when Bessie's new calf should be born in April, and until she is successfully bred (artificially inseminated) for the next one.  He is a reliable indicator of when the vet needs to come out, and that time-line corresponds with the timing of his 18 month expected appointment with the butcher.  If our pasture has plenty of grass in it next year, and if he needs to put on a bit more weight, he might be here until a year from now.  I'll hate to see him go, but....again, it's reality.

And Bessie is pregnant with the next calf.....so sending the almost-grown steer to the butcher needs to be part of the plan.

And pigs:

Bea, Boss, and Buford/Buffy will stay the winter with us.  A little boar piglet is coming from Michigan next week to be raised as Bea's eventual Prince Charming.  His name is Boris.

Since Bea is "of age" to be bred, and since fertility can be affected by not breeding a pig when she reaches breeding age and breeding size, we will most likely introduce her to our friend's KuneKune boar in December.  If that mating is successful, she will have mixed-breed piglets in March or April, and by fall could have a purebred litter sired by Boris.  

This hog-breeding is all new to me, so we'll see how it works out.  Boris needs a little time to grow up before he can father any piggie babies.

Barn cats (don't worry, this is a not-for-food category!):  

We started the summer with 6, and have lost 2 (one to the traffic, one possibly got into someone's rat or coon poison).  

The remaining 4 are a nice, friendly group, sleeping together, rubbing chins with each other, not fighting with the house cat, not crossing the busy street (that I know of).  Hopefully this little group will stick around for a while.

Someone asked me how many animals we have, and I really had no idea.  Rough estimate is 100 mouths to feed, including barn cats.  That's a lot of grain, and poultry feed, and hay, and hog ration, and grazing requirements.  Not to mention all the water we'd need to haul this winter to keep everyone satisfied out in the cold barn or rabbit shed

We need to cut that "100" number back to something much more manageable for the winter!  Fifty would be just about right, once all the critters intended to be food are taken out of the line-up.

Nature is winding down for winter.  The seasons are changing and food is less plentiful in the gardens and in the wild.  Cold weather is setting in, and the animals will be eating more to keep themselves warm.

The farm's bank account is ready for a winter break after reaching the pinnacle of what it can be stretched to cover this year, for sure.....

It's time to greatly diminish the numbers out there.  The clamor for food in the morning needs to be diminished just a bit.

 

Laura

Always drama

It's always Rocky with the drama....

Last summer, we clipped a carabiner to his collar so that it would be easier to put him on the dog cable and take him back off again.  (A carabiner is a strong metal clip that hikers and climbers use)  It worked just fine for months and months.....  

Until somehow, out in the pasture one morning, there was the most awful yowling and anguished wolf-howls.  He had been chewing on the carabiner, and somehow it lodged (not in his mouth, as you might expect) but in his paw.  Snapped shut right in between two of the sensitive toes on his front foot.  

A dog in pain isn't something to mess with.  I had to assess the situation quicky and get the other dog away in order to do anything, not knowing if Rocky would be snapping at ME as I tried to get him free.

He was chewing frantically at his foot and of course, didn't see my hands as any type of help, just as something that was keeping him from freeing himself.

Eventually, he calmed down just a bit (because I forced him to stop pulling against the carabiner, so it stopped digging so hard into his foot), and I could see how it was clipped in and how to get it out.

Rocky makes a lot of crazy noises anyway, but the husky-in-anguish wailing was unforgettable.

But I did forget, until this morning.

Taffy and I were tending to the rabbits, Shadow was digging frantically at an imaginary chipmunk by the willow tree, and Rocky was....somewhere in the vicinity.  Without warning, he was suddenly giving his earsplitting anguished cries again from behind the willow.

Split-second assessment:  Dog in pain and seemingly attached to the fence by his nose, with two extra furry noses in the mix, trying to see what was his problem, and the little puppy starts barking.  Ugh!

Rocky had apparently been trotting by the fenceline, like he usually does, and a stray fence-clip at just the right height snagged and caught him in the nostril.  

Of course, he was pulling away from the fence, the clip was pulling farther into his nose, and he was getting more and more frantic.

(I had visions of the lamb who pulled a metal spike through his lower lip because he panicked while I was trying to clear the area of curious pigs.....)

Anyway, Shadow lost interest and went back to her chipmunk hunting, the pup was somehow shoved behind me and kept quiet, and Rocky was maneuvered so that the pressure was no longer tearing farther into his sensitive nose.  Only then could I take a good look at how the bent-up fence clip was looped around and into his nose, and we got him free.  If it had been any part of him less rubbery and substantial than nose tissue, he would have ripped it right through.

But here's a terrible thought:  What would have happened if Rocky had been out on his own and no-one had been there to force him to relax and quit fighting it?  His nose would probably be torn to shreds right about now, after struggling to rip free.  

'Guess it's one more thing on the to-do list:  Walk the fence-line and remove any clips that might still be attached to the fence but nothing else, and waiting to snag an unsuspecting critter as they saunter past!

One twist of the wrist, and the offending fence-clip was wrenched off the fence and tossed into the neighboring weedy area.  And I was immediately sorry, because next year, that area will be fenced and then grazed by animals who will find that metal clip and it will cause some other animal emergency.

Sigh!

It was raining, the dogs were filthy with mud, Rocky was making a beeline for the kitchen door, and we just trudged right into the kitchen, muck, mud and everything.  After all the excitement, all 3 dogs are in their crates and out of my way.

 

Farm chores await.  We WERE early in getting the rabbits fed.  Now feeding the rest of the animals is right on time.  

Just had to share the morning's excitement.....

 

Laura

From the story of the Grinch....to a chewy candy

Introducing......

"Taffy".  A name has been chosen.

From Cindy Lou, to Cindy Lou Who, to all kinds of suggested names in between, Jeremy has decided on Taffy. 

Possible nicknames: 

"Taffy Apple"

"Laffy Taffy"

"Salt-water Taffy"

Or the easy one:  "Taffy-girl" which I'm already calling her.

She ran and played with Jeremy yesterday and they both came in exhausted.  

Today, she's "rarin' to go", but in a quiet, reserved but alert sort of way.

We'll do the rounds in a few minutes.  Rabbits, chickens, turkeys.  

Then all 3 dogs get to run for a bit in the pasture, with Cindy/Taffy still on the leash in case Rocky decides to bulldoze her as he dashes by.  Next it's out to the barn with Taffy in pursuit, to feed cats, sheep, pigs, ducks and geese.  

By the time I'm ready to feed and milk the cows, Taffy is ready for some crate time where she will rest very, very quietly.

(Yes, she IS Jeremy's dog, but he's not here during school, so it falls to me to train her to work on the farm and to tire her out so that I can get other work done.)

A good dog is a tired dog!  :)

 

Laura

Rain and more rain

Wow, we pray for rain and then we get a whole summer of it.

We were worried about the water supply in the underground aquifer getting low.  After the past winter and the rain all summer, it must be full to overflowing!

  

The corn in all of the farmers' fields is looking great.  Soybeans are lush and full.

It's been wet enough that we've only gotten about 6 tomatoes from 18 very leafy and overgrown tomato plants.  But lots more cucumbers than we can use.  The pigs are great at munching down fat, yellow cucumbers. 

 

The ducks and geese LOVE this weather.

Chickens and turkeys don't seem to care, because they have their dry house to go back into.  

Rabbits are snug in their little barn, and despite a few warm muggy days, we haven't had to break out the frozen 2 liter bottles to put in their cages (in extreme heat, the rabbits lie right next to the ice-bottle to keep cool and not die of heat stroke)

The sheep are wet and not so happy, especially the two males who are in the outside pen until breeding time.

The pigs don't care, and are wading knee-deep through cow slop and happily rooting in the soft ground for whatever yummy stuff they can unearth.

The cows are over ankle-deep in muck and mud and filth.  Bessie's tail is long enough to drag in the slop that they are standing in, so her white sides are decorated with black lines from tail-swipes.  Their inside area is 6 inches of dry straw on top of wetness that oozes through when you step on it.

It's been really hard to keep up with the cow/sheep/pig manure clean-up, because the ground is too wet for the wheelbarrow.  And yes, we're still moving the manure one wheelbarrow full at a time.  

And the pigs are proving to be a really good force to bulldoze and spread the composted piles of manure from last winter.  Using pigs to do work?  Who would have thought?!  :)  

I can work with that idea.  Dump the manure where I want the pigs to root through/turn over the Seed that area after the pigs are done with it.  Move the pigs along to do the same in the next section.  If we get a rotation going, the whole farm could be enriched and rototilled and reseeded with pasture grasses and clover, and all of the available grazing area could be used to capacity.  (And the manure would not all be dumped in one huge and ever-growing pile.)

The hay farmers haven't had it so easy.  We've seen already-cut hay getting rained on in the fields all summer long. 

Yesterday, a farmer delivered about 95 bales of hay.  We set 4 bales back on the wagon because they were moldy underneath.  This morning, those 4 bales got drenched with unexpected rain while the wagon sits on our driveway waiting to be picked up.  'Guess we're buying those moldy bales anyway.  Hopefully the pigs will chow down on the unmoldy parts so that it's not $20 wasted!

The thunder clap early this a.m. sounded as if it would have hit the dead section of the willow tree and sheared it off.  Grandmother Willow is still standing, but not so much of her is still "living".

And it's a real joy to put on a rain jacket again and again to let the puppy out.  The dogs have been running in the pasture for the past 3 mornings, but I'm not trudging out there only to come back with 3 muddy dogs and wet pawprints being tracked all over the kitchen floor!  Rocky very kindly got his cable tangled around the picnic table, so I had to dash out in the pouring rain to set him free.  Sigh....

Well, time to put on the rain boots and slog through the mess.  There will be no manure-moving today, either, which makes that much more of a mess to shovel out later!

Maybe I can get the house clean instead.  

Or process the 25 pounds of purchased tomatoes that are ripe on the counter.....

Something will be accomplished today, I just don't know yet what it will be.

Farm resources that we could share: 

We have 30 ducks that will go to the "processor" in 3 weeks and 10 more that will go in October.  Our family does not need that many.  These have very dark meat and they seem best when I follow a recipe for cooking wild duck rather than the typical domesticated duck.  Anyone interested in some duck for dinner?

We have 2 litters of rabbits that will be brought to the processor this month and next, coming back as 3 and 4 pound fryers (I think that's the right word)

We have 2 or 3 turkeys that will be available, being brought to the processor in early November.  

(For ducks, rabbits and turkeys, I need to sell them "live" and then "offer" the option of taking them to the butcher for the customer.  The customer gets a nicely shrink-wrapped and fresh or frozen bird/rabbit after the processing date.)

Anyway, if you're interested in any of those, let me know. 

And I'm off....to feed many hungry and loudly insistent mouths!  (Squealing, baaing, honking, mooing, clucking, screeching, meowing, gobbling, snorting......)  It's fun to hear the deafening noise die down as those mouths get occupied with eating.

 

Laura

A boy and his dog

For now, her name is Cindy Lou.  Cindy Lou Who.

Lots of suggestions have been tossed out there for names.  

Wren.  Sparrow.  Robin.

Wisp (with a lithp/lisp).  Whisper.  

Taffy.  Laffy Taffy.  

Millie (as in Maleficent).  

Kitty.  Bobcat.  Cougar.  Tawny.

Butterscotch (Carrie had a bunny named Butterscotch, though).  

Luna (nope, that's the name of my sister's family's dog)  

PhotoCindySis (photosynthesis)

Sunny (but it sounds like "Sonny)

Misty ("Mom, that's not a name for a boy's dog!").  

Sandy (it would be a perfect fit, but that's my Mom's name!)  ;)  

Farm dog side of things:

She has overcome her fear of the ducks quacking loudly in the echo-ey barn.  She now calmly and curiously watches the turkeys and chickens and doesn't hide behind my legs.  She has ventured near the sheep when they are on one side of the fence and I'm kneeling on her side of the fence (then she lays her nose on my knee and gazes at them).  She sniffs noses with bunnies and eats their droppings.  (Yeah, she's a farm dog.)  She watches the cows from a distance.  She is still understandably scared of the squealing and boisterous pigs, but will perk her ears towards them when she can see them and keep an eye on what they're doing.  Just today, she ventured to sniff the big pig's enormous fatty back when Bea flopped on the ground to get a scratch behind the ears.

She whimpers for Sly the cat and tries to chase the barn cats.  She rolled in some cat poo this morning.  Jeremy will not be happy about that.  First bath tonight, I guess.

People side of things:

She whines when Jeremy leaves the room and jumps up when she sees him coming back.  She trots happily along with any of us, snuggles up on Jeff's foot, falls to the ground for Michael to scratch her belly, comes running if I bend down to motion her over, and watches forlornly as everyone piles into the car to leave for school.

This past weekend, people were home all the time and she loved it.

Jeremy taught her how to go up the stairs, to get to his bedroom, and how to tumble down the stairs to get to where everyone else is.

She had one accident in the house within the first 24 hours.  No trouble since.

She doesn't like her crate, but is quiet when we put her in it.  She sleeps in the crate without whimpering, and Jeremy gets a full night's rest.

Dog interaction is getting better.  

Shadow has a problem with food aggression and got smacked hard on the rump (by me) for lunging at the pup.  We ended up at the vet's office the next day, because Shadow's back legs were acting weak, and I thought I had triggered the degenerative spine/vertebrae thing from two years ago.  Turns out that Shadow has some arthritis.

But Shadow and Cindy?  Shadow ignores her, and Cindy is to the point where she eagerly tries to follow along wherever Shadow might go out in the pasture.  Cindy will potentially be the one to engage Shadow in some sort of play, I can see it already.

Rocky...has a problem with not being the alpha-dog.  He was definitely brooding last week whenever he had to be in the presence of the little pup.  Didn't matter that she would cower back from his growling and glowering.  We watched them closely, and even kept them separate or only brought Cindy into the kitchen if Rocky was in his dog crate.

Rocky plays rough, like a foot-ball player who wants to tackle and crunch and pummel.  He runs full-speed and sideswipes.  He is like a speeding freight-train when he gets going and heads straight towards you.  

A slight-framed little puppy is just a bit intimidated by that sort of play.  Shadow and Rocky crash around together out in the pasture.  Little Cindy would peep out from behind me every time the two big dogs flew past.  And the "flying past" is always punctuated with their growls and snapping and snarling, not fun lets-play-together doggy play-dates.  It's power-playing, not friendly-playing.

(Neither of our other dogs would do well at a dog park, it wouldn't even be worth trying.)

But today....all 3 dogs were kind of waiting in the kitchen for something to happen.....  It was time to go out to do the rounds (feeding the animals, milking Bessie), but they wanted to run.  We went out to the pasture, with Cindy Lou on the short leash.  Shadow trotted around, sniffing.  Rocky picked up speed and swooped past, accidentally-on-purpose shoving his shoulder into Shadow as he went.  Cindy perked up her ears.  The next time, she peeked out.  Again, and she was no longer behind me but was out in front, watching the dogs with anticipation.  Rocky tried to sideswipe her, and she nimbly stepped aside but took care to stay close to me.

When the big brute tired himself out, Shadow enjoyed a more leisurely trot around the perimeter, and Cindy did her best to keep up and dash around at the end of the leash.  She even picked up an old musty tennis ball and trotted around with it.

I think that Shadow and Cindy will be fine.  Rocky and Cindy will work out some sort of understanding where she can feel comfortable when he comes up and rudely invades her personal space.  

Jeremy should tell some of his side of the story, but here's one fun moment they've shared.  

I told him about how Cindy loves the small hollow areas under the roots of the ancient willow tree.  He took her out there and ran with her.  Without warning, she would throw herself under the tree, peering out from between the roots and watching him intently.  He might peek in from the other side and off she would dash.  Both of them came in exhausted from playing so hard.

Watching them was like watching the perfect moment; a boy with his dog. 

And right about then, nothing else mattered except that Jeremy finally had the puppy he's been waiting for.  

 

Laura