Hello again, today I am going to be discussing the time when we decided to give all eleven pups their names.

One name down, eleven to go…

To be perfectly honest, choosing names for all eleven puppies was one of the more frustrating tasks to do. In the litter, the majority of the pups were tri-colour, a few were mainly bi-colour; brown and black and the rest were lemon; tan brown and white. We tried at first to give them names based on the colour of their coats, but that didn’t really work. Some examples of names that we tried out: We had Archie, Lemony-Snickett, Buster, Hazel, Ruby, Molly etc. Some of the names we decided on: Charlie, Buster, Ruby, Abbie, Buzzy, Bumble, Dumbo, Dexter, Phoebe, Mollie and Buttercup.

My sister made a rota, which designated each person in my family a job in regards to the puppies.. For example, since there were so many pups compared to us, it took three people to feed them in one go. my mom was in charge of making their feed, my siblings and I helped out with feedings. Each of us would have to hold at least three puppies each when it was their feeding time. It was pure chaos the first few times, feeding them. Once the pups were old enough to be bottle fed by us, my mom made a special feed for them to help them get used to food other than Honey’s milk. It was a stressful yet exciting task, trying to feed the pups. My mom was the best at handling  and feeding them so all my siblings and I could do was hold the other pups whilst my mom fed them. One of the pups, Buzzy, was one of the weakest pups in the litter and o needed extra love, food and attention. He was extremely small so he had to be given an extra feed every day. It was scary, at first, seeing how frail and small Buzzy was then. We had to make sure that he was well fed every day and tat he was warm enough. A few days later, a friend of my mom’s gave us a loan of her UV lamp. It helped keep the puppies warm and safe. Since the puppies were born in December, the weather outside was really cold. We made sure not to have any windows open near  them and to avoid any drafts caused by doors. They were so sweet and small. I had to pinch myself sometimes as I couldn’t believe we had puppies, and so many of them.

It was two weeks before Christmas when some of my cousins from Scotland and England to visit. My cousins from England were to stay with us for Christmas, but my other cousins only came to visit for a few days. The reaction that the pups got from everyone was amazing. I have one cousin who is almost as mad about dogs as I am. The minute he saw the puppies, he started smiling like mad and oohing and aahing at them. Soon, everyone began to take pictures of the pups and asking if they could  hold the puppies.  It was a busy few days as we had many visitors popping over to our house just to see the puppies. Even the owner of their father popped in for a visit, unfortunately Dexter did not accompany them. Since the pups were born near Christmas time, it was only fitting of my mom to make eleven stockings for the puppies. Honey had one as well.

Until next time my fellow animal lovers!!