Thankful/Sad Post

 First of all, I would like to thank so many of you out there for the success of this last litter.  They are all with their new owners now and we are very happy with all of them!!  My thanks goes out of course, to the loving people who took them into their home, but also to those of you out there who advertised for us!  This was the first time we sold a whole litter without a single person finding our ad!  They either saw someone who had a Finley River Retriever puppy, photos on facebook, stumbled across the blog, or someone told them about us!!  I think that is pretty cool!  It makes us happy!

But of course, all success must come with a price and a stroke of bad luck.  We experienced that last week.  We lost our sweet 8 month old Penny.  

She was my son's dog.  He'd call her "his very own puppy."  Pretty special since most of his puppies are only around for 8 weeks.
(the day we picked her up)

Of course, we fell in love with her fuzzy self and were hoping someday she too would contribute to the Finley River Retriever business.

She quickly fit right in with our outdoorsy family and dogs!

Sorry to offend...it is what it is, people...legal, conserving the deer population, and necessary.  
And Penny loved being around the action!

She loved all the action of being out in the country!

And she lived happily and freely until I noticed she wasn't feeling well last week.  I took her to the vet expecting to get some meds and bring her home.  I brought her home, but the prognosis wasn't good.  She tested positive for a rare virus that occurs mainly in young dogs who run freely in rural areas, mainly the midwest.  The cause is unknown and it is not contagious (so we were at least thankful for that).

We brought her home and the boys got a good lesson on how the the Lord gives and takes away.  We were all able to sit with her and say good bye and I will spare you from the heartwrenching details of what the boys did and said.

Now Penny is gone and we are adjusting.  It's still sad.  Especially now that Luke has added into his redundant prayer "and help Penny have fun up there."  But we have the memories of this funny, quirky puppy and the pictures that now I'm so thankful for.

So I thought I should post it.  That it's not all fun and puppies.  As my dad says with his cattle, "when you have that many cows, you're bound to lose some.  It's just how it is."  So I guess that's kind of how it is with the dogs.  We do have a lot of dogs.  But he doesn't let his cows inside to sleep by the fire, or in the car to go to town, or the back of the truck to go to the river.  So this is totally different!  She was our pet too.
R. I. P. Miss Penny Pup.

Finally Some Nice Winter Days

The weather was finally nice enough for a few days to let the puppies out in the yard.

They had a great time chasing Penny.

She wasn't sure why they were after her so much.

This is what they wanted.  They were looking for Mama!

But they liked that Penny was willing to play with them too!

It was really good to see them out and about.

They have sure got some sweet personalities.

Although this one looks a little guilty.

Nine pups are brutal on the pant legs though.  So sometimes you have to climb the closest thing around just to get away from it.

But eventually, you have to come back down...and they'll be waiting.

Another thing about the weather being nice is that my son is a lot more willing to help with the chores.

And it's a lot more fun to let them chase you through the yard, as opposed to the barn stall.

It was good for everyone to get out for awhile!

Less than a week now before these little guys will be going to their new homes.  We sure do love them!

My Son's Birthday Party

 Last weekend we had my son's birthday party.  The puppies were a hit!

They're always a hit with this girl.

They were even popular with kids who don't generally like animals.

The puppies were thrilled to have the company of all the kids.
Still not willing to share their food with them though.

This is "Black Collar."  He outweighs the others by a couple pounds.  Therefore, my son calls him Bubba Chubs.

Available puppy
(I threw that in as a subliminal message)

Available Puppy!
Oops, there it is again.

This was where I said, "hey do you guys want to go in for cake?"

"Presents?"

"Ice cream?"

"Cash?"

But no one cared.

If you've been to one kid birthday, you've been to them all.

Available Puppy
Sorry.

Then my sister in law said something about something she'd heard about picking out a puppy.  She said if the puppy will let you cradle it like an infant, it is sure to be a good choice.
So they tried it...

Yep, this one's good!

That counts too!

And this.

And, I'd say you can't go wrong with this one either.

Available!
I can't help it.

Puppies in a New Place

The puppies made it through some extremely cold nights last week.  We had them in a portable cage in our old dairy barn with heat lamps and heaters and they did great!  But they had no room for much movement.

So now that the temperatures are not below zero degrees, we moved them to a bigger part of our other barn.  

They still have their pool/bed and their heat lamp, but now they have room to move around and play a little.

I took this one of camo collar back when he was still available.

My nephew said, "these are the biggest, nicest puppies you've ever had!"

But he says that every time I think.

He's right though.  They are big! 

And nice!

And soo sweet!

And so cute!!

Seriously!
I tell them everyday
"You're the cutest puppies in the world."

It helps their confidence.

Look how happy and confident they are!

I think he's right, they might just be the nicest.