Kyle Warren Dogs

From bed I hear Proton scratching at the door to go out after having slept for 6.5 hours.  So I spring up and run to the door to let her out.  She runs across the driveway to pee and poop.  She immediately runs back inside to me where the little vice grip latches onto my ankle and nearly takes me down.  Being the proud working line GSD owner, I say with a painful grin— “that’da girl!” in a high pitched encouraging tone as I hop over to my rag on a string.  We played Catch the Chippie if you can for about 5 minutes.  Thus far she has been developing a nice solid grip.

About six months before I bred Maya and Quax I was driving home from a training and just thinking proud thoughts of my dogs for who they are (that’s so much of my identity as a human being, since they are such a true extension of myself)— and the word proton popped into my head and it seemed just so fitting for these high octane, fast moving, fast thinking, ramming, jamming dogs.  …..and sure enough— it is.

Today was a very busy and exciting day home on the range! After playing tug-of-war with my PJs for 10 minutes— we got the day started.  Proton and I ran some errands in the morning— went to the bank, got gas and dropped off a deposit to the caterer for the wedding (on June 12th!).  She road shotgun around town and to home again.  She played out in the yard with all the dogs, of course her and Maya are pretty tight but Xavier and Xila often play with her too.  Slam and Quax will go and engage when they are in their playful states. And of course everyday when I get home I have to take down Hazel and Rogue’s plywood painted sign at the head of the driveway that says, “GSDs free to ANY home!”

We decided to take a family hike— Jana, me and all 9 dogs went over to our very special local getaway in Lake Hill, NY.  What a beautiful, relaxing, heartwarming family activity.  The dogs were totally in heaven and Proton hung pretty close to me and followed me everywhere.  During the last third of the hike she was venturing out more to engage with the other dogs.

This property is great because it has huge fields, a dense pine forest and a quiet meandering stream that’s great for pups because the depth ranges from inches to 2.5 feet.  So after using downed trees of various sizes as hurdles we zigzagged back and forth across the stream, Proton had her momentary stressful fits before making a decision to follow where I had gone but her angsting never lasted longer than 30 seconds.  The deepest she crossed was about half way up her body.  We romped through the woods for a solid 30 minutes or more.  It was a very fun hike that was both physically and mentally draining for her.  This is really the absolute maximum that I would physically push a pup at this age of 8.5 weeks.  The terrain though challenging was all flat.  You can certainly push a puppy too much and 30 non-stop minutes of hiking with mental energy being burned up is plenty!  She slept for several hours after that and was rearing to go again by mid-afternoon.  She was out in the yard rolling around with Maya for nearly an hour and a half.  Really adorable play with both of them lying on their sides just hanging out, while I was up in the pigeons coops preparing for shipping the birds to the races.

Jana got to puppy-sit while I was up at the club house from 5-10pm.  She had no accidents in the house and played tug with a rag like psycho-puppy so I was told.  When I got home I brought her out twice and went to bed.  Last night was her first night in the house and I decided to see what would happen if I gated her in the kitchen/bedroom/office area with us (plenty of crates and dog beds to chose from).  Well— she peed 4x in the kitchen….. bummer.  We will see how tonight goes……