Saying goodbye…

I meant to post this blog last week but had a pet portrait commission that I needed to get completed, so here it is.

Bee and her first litter of puppies

Nine weeks ago, our gorgeous Bee gave birth to a litter of beautiful puppies. How was that nine weeks ago already?! Last week, we said goodbye to four out of the five pups. Sophie, Niara, Blue and Filey were all collected by their new owners (following social distancing guidelines of course) and we were down to one. Thankfully, it happened in stages, the two girls, Sophie and Niara were first to leave on the Saturday. This left us with the two boys, Blue and Filey and our little girl, Kula. I must admit that five pups down to three was a big change and I almost thought it was achievable to keep and bring up three puppies! However, after a couple of days, I realised that one pup was enough, especially if you do not have a designated dog kennel! We sadly said goodbye to the two boys on the Tuesday and we had an evening of unusual quietness around the house. Bee has not seemed that perturbed by the disappearance of her pups which I am thankful for. Kula, on the other hand, clearly missed the interaction with her brothers and sisters for the first couple of days, but then she realised that Mummy will playfight with her too, so her worries seemed to disappear quite quickly.

Three pups on their way for jabs and micro-chipping before being collected.

And how did I cope? Having reared 5 gorgeous pups from birth to 8 weeks old – well, I was very sad to see them all go. Each one had grown into such a wonderful dog – they all had their own personality which differed to the others and I felt so close to all of them.

However, (and I never thought I would say this because they truly were a delight), it did get to that point, when they were about 6.5/7 weeks old, that I thought, ‘can I cope for much longer?!’. They were suddenly into everything, tearing up the garden, biting the branches of my new little apple tree, escaping out of their pen! I constantly had my fingers in their mouths, retrieving bits of bark, coal, flower heads, sticks, plant labels, string……! So, although I would have loved to have kept them all, I was ready for them to leave at 8 weeks old.  Keeping Kula has made the whole process a lot easier – I didn’t have to say goodbye to them all and just training one is a challenge! And from what I hear from the new owners, it sounds as though we have picked the most belligerent puppy, so training is going to be fun! As cute as Kula is, her selective hearing is impeccable!

Kula

I still cannot believe that our experience of bringing up Bee’s first litter is over – the time has flown by for us. I know lockdown seems to have dragged for the majority but with a litter of pups, you are pretty much tied to home anyway! It was such an incredible experience, and although we shall be doing it again, it won’t be for another couple of years.  We know how we would change things for next time – luckily this time Bee only had a small litter so how we housed them worked perfectly, but any future litters could be much bigger, so we would have an outside kennel where it would all happen, rather than our kitchen.

From top down to right: Filey, Niara, Kula, Sophie and Blue

I am so glad that all four puppies have gone to loving homes of people we know well and who are all close by. We will be seeing them all regularly and we hope to all be in the same gundog puppy training squad together!

What a magical couple of months and one we shall never forget.

Next on the list? A portrait of all five puppies!

It’s just the two of us now - Kula and Bee