News from Camp BC (aka - Linda's house!)

(received from Linda)

Hi everyone,The pups have had a blast here at BC paradise (of course they don't quite appreciate the arena and equipment yet like the "big" BCs do :) but they do like yards and stuff.

The pups HATE the heat of the day, so each morning and evening we go for a walk (all 6 of them). Yesterday we ventured down to the pond, they all boldly went running pel mell down the beach and little Field sort of misjudged his momentum and ended up with his feet in the water. :) He was quite surprised by the earth underfoot suddenly changing to water but was no worse for the wear. The others observed this and were then a bit skeptical about the water...several of them stretching their necks out as far as they could to try to sniff the water without making the same mistake Field had. It wasn't long before they were happy to slosh around at the edge. One of their favorite games has now become hide and seek in the tall grass around the pond edge. They also liked playing "king of the mountain" on a large 2 X3 rock I have at water's edge...at one point all 6 of them had climbed up on it. At first I avoided walking all the way around the pond because in the far corner the fence is close by and I didn't want to lose one of them under the fence (umm, her name would be Meadow ? :) but last night I went ahead since they all have good recalls. At that end there are cattails...which means frogs. :) They were quite delighted about the frogs jumping into the pond but none ventured to follow :)

Last night when it was cool (they come to life at night) we took our walk out to the back field. That was great fun..there they discovered on of those basketball sized tennis balls. At first they thought it was a monster...but soon they were mauling it...I threw it many times and the whole pack would chase. It was flat enough that the pups could run right into it at full speed and it acted like a bumper to help slow them down. :) I let them explore the back porch of the arena where I have equipment stored but we did not tour the arena just yet (where the carpet is :).

I have it rigged so they have my little backyard "run" area to play in during the course of the morning and then during the heat of the day they move into the garage where they have almost free run of half of it. Periodically we take a walk out to the grass near the garage, but during the day they run back into the house where it is cool. They've all mastered the dog door.

This afternoon Stellar was in the garage and I went out to check on him and he was laying side by side with their pen. He had half of the garage of space but chose to lay right next to them for some reason. It was cute. I wonder if he will still feel a desire to be close to them in a few weeks. Thus far I've kept them separate from my adults.

This morning Forest ("Rumor") went home with Whitney and Field ("Thriller") went home with Stacey. If they are smart they will drive with the AC off so they sleep :) So, I am down to four pups which seems like a much more manageable number. I'm not sure how Lisa managed eight of them :)

Linda