Ice and I are a little off kelter this evening as we find ourselves alone. Ginger and her family had been with us since Sunday due to the disastrous ice storm that left their entire town without power. If you can't tell by the picture, they got one and a half inches of ice that devastated everything. They found out today that they should have power again at their home tomorrow, so they left to spend the night with friends and get back to their jobs. It's eerily quiet here and we miss them already.
As usual, it's been hectic around here and we seem to never get caught up on all that we need to do. It doesn't leave any time for blogging, for sure. I brought work home with me again, but haven't lifted a finger yet to get it done this evening. We need a vacation and by vacation, I mean more than a day or two.
We made a very hard decision last weekend to shut down the kennel and get out of the puppy business. That decision wasn't hard since we both have come to realize that we simply don't have the time or energy to do things we way we want. Both our jobs are very demanding and stressful and the extra work that the kennel added has just become too much for us. Especially since my back won't hold up to what it used to.
The hard part is the part that I have shed many tears over. And that is the fact that we must give up most of our adult dogs. I'm so in love with them all that it's the hardest thing in the world for me to give them up, but we've decided to keep only two. Buster was our first Schnauzer and we would never give him up. So I have agonized about which of the others to keep, knowing I'd have to give up the rest.
We discussed all the pros and cons of each dog, but I found that I absolutely could not even discuss giving Junior up. I would choke up before I could even get a word out, so I've decided that he will stay with us. We will find good homes for the rest and I'll probably cry for months, but I realize that it's best for them. We simply can't give seven dogs the attention they deserve, so I'll console myself that each of the five will be getting that individual attention and most likely be more spoiled than they are now.
On the positive side, Junior will become a permanent house dog along with Buster and he will have the love seat to himself, which is his favorite place to stretch out and sleep.
Although it will be hard to get through for a while, I am very much looking forward to taking down all the extra fencing and reclaiming the back yard. The kennel was built for easy conversion to a storage building and we need one desperately. And we will again have the time to travel like we used to and not be so tied down. We need that. And more time to blog!
The puppies are growing like little weeds and are the cutest little things I've ever seen! We hear those cute little barks and growls when we go into the kennel and I love to watch them tumble and wrestle in the pen. Each litter is eating two cans of puppy food a day, so they are keeping us really busy changing papers and feeding, but the weather hasn't allowed us to let them access to the outside pens yet. I hope that happens soon because I hate to see them cooped up when they are big enough to go outside and play.....and POOP! They are little walking poop factories already.
Adorable, tho!
That's all the drivel I know this evening, so I think I'll look around here on the stream and check up on all my friends.
Love to all!
Pup
