Updates!!

Hey everyone!
Things are great here at Mountain Creek. It has been a little cool here the last few days, but we enjoyed some amazing weather about a week ago. It was high 60's and sunny. Absolutely beautiful and boy did we take advantage of it. You couldn't get us inside for more then 5 minutes. We spent most of the time at our home, hanging out in the backyard with the kids and dogs. We threw some burgers on the grill and ate on the patio. The dogs love it when we all hang out in the yard. They get so excited and run around playfully together. We throw them the ball although neither Lucy nor Willa are the best at bringing it back. They like to retrieve it, but then like to run with it. We also took a road trip to this cool Red covered bridge, and did some walking and exploring. It was great to get outdoors in the fresh air.

We decided to keep a puppy from our last litter. We named her Kiley(we are Irish and wanted a name that reflected that) She is just beautiful and has a great personality. She is the sweetest thing, loves to sit in our lap more then anything. She will snuggle up and fall asleep in a matter of minutes.
She does do a little bit of "mouthing" which is expected at her age. However, we have not had her chew one thing we have note wanted her to and she does really well with the kids which surprised us a little. She does not seem to have an interest in chewing nonstop, so we have not had any shoes, or stuffed animals ruined. She seems to know already which things are her toys and sticks with those. I think she might like playing tug of war and catch me if you can with our daughter's toy poodle "Lola" more then anything. They are the perfect size for each other(for now) and they just love to play together. We were expecting her to bite on our children and to deal with a few tears from rough puppy play which is common when you have children and a puppy at the same time. Puppies tend to see children as more their size, like one of their littermates and play a little rougher....but none of that has happened. Kiley is very sweet with them. She does like to play with them, but she is not rough and seems to intuitively know to be a little more gentle. We can't wait until she is 4 months old so we can take her to puppy classes. We have been teaching her sit, which she does very well. She is totally food driven and is so focused on the treat she will get when she performs what we ask of her. We are thinking of moving to a less tantalizing treat so that she will focus more on us and the treat is more of an added benefit.
It has been awhile since we have raised a puppy and it is a lot of work, but totally rewarding and worth it. We want to keep a puppy with each litter and have had to wait patiently for the right time, so we are enjoying every moment of it, even the ones where we have had to clean up a little accident.

Above are some pictures from our outdoor playtime in the warmer weather...hopefully some more of those days are around the corner!