We raise a litter or two of puppies every summer, and this has been an unusual one in that all our puppies are somewhere else until they are at least seven weeks old. We just got our first four on Thursday, three from one litter and one from another. I don’t know much about them except three are 10 weeks old and one is closing in on eight weeks. They’ve all been handled by literally hundreds, if not thousands, of different people in their short lives, since they were born at Husky Homestead up at Denali Park where Jeff King opens up his kennel every summer for tours to help pay the bills.
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- Salem holds one very tame puppy
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- This one looks like her mother
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- Two of the Adidas pups were black
King had several of my best dogs last winter. One of them, Adidas, had pups first, breeding to a dog named Tater this spring. We “split” that litter of six, so I’ve got the three female pups from that breeding, two black and tan pups and one gray one that looks like Adidas’ mini-me.
Then Jeff bred a dog of mine named Solomon to a dog named Dollar. We agreed that I’d get one pup from that litter, and I’ve got a little reddish guy who reminds me very much of Solomon’s father, Sunbear, who died this spring. So we’re very happy to have that little guy around.
No names yet, although the Adidas litter theme is supposed to be “80s rock stars.” And Dollar (who was one of a car-rental-theme litter) will have pups named after currency. I don’t know if my little guy is to be named Nickel, Peso, Mark, Shekel, Euro, Kip, Krona, Yen, or some other denomination, or if we abandon the themes and rename our own dogs. That will sort itself out in a few days.
The other litters were born later, and we will pick up those pups in July sometime.
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June 17, 2008 at 11:48 am
Laurie
Finally, an update! You need to write every day! Yeah, time – I know. Salem is absolutely gorgeous. I know – you’d think it would be the puppy that would catch my eye, but Salem wins, hands down. And do you not have child labor laws in AK? Poor baby with that scratch on his beautiful little face. Firewood indeed.
June 18, 2008 at 11:43 am
kasilofmusher
Thanks for the comment. I’d like to write more but I want to be careful to keep this blog in some kind of focus. I write when there’s something happening here worth saying, most of the time something dog-related. Right now we’re in summer mode, getting the garden on track after a late spring and, today, putting a net in the water to hopefully catch some red salmon. We’re beginning to stock up for winter supplies. Last night, we made jam from our first batch of red rhurbarb to mature.
And about Salem’s scratch, he seems to run head-first into every obstacle. If I had a nickel for every bump, bruise or cut to his head, I’d have… well, I’d have about $2.30. But you get the point.