2019  HIKING, ULTRA-WALKING,

& RV TRAVEL ADVENTURES

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   VOLUNTEER VISIT #1 TO WARRIOR CANINE 
CONNECTION'S HEALING QUARTERS, p. 2

TUESDAY, AUGUST 6

 
Continued from the previous page.

ACTIVITIES THE FIRST VISIT

I asked for a wide variety of useful tasks and I got them -- more than I could physically handle, in fact! I was exhausted after four days and left a day earlier than I had planned.

<sigh> I'm not 35 any more.


Danielle Young, Puppy Development Specialist in the Puppy Enrichment Center AKA puppy trailer shows
five of the adult dogs - mamas and her own two boys - the Lumabones we brought (+ a Lamb Chop stuffie).
The whelping room and nursery are behind her. The playroom is on the right, out of view.  (6-24-19)


Dawn and her adorable Golden retriever puppies occupied the nursery during my first visit. (6-27-19)

The hardest jobs were cleaning the kennel, scooping copious amounts of poop in the large grassy corrals, emptying, cleaning, and refilling large litter boxes with absorbent wood pellets, and taking heavy garbage bags full of dirty laundry to a Laundromat six miles away.

The puppy center and kennel generate a LOT of dirty laundry -- floor pads, towels, soft beds, stuffed toys -- and the one lone residential-size washer and dryer in the kennel can't possibly handle it all.


View of the main area in the puppy center, looking from the nursery-whelping side toward the
"playroom" on the left, Danielle's office (with door closed), and storage room to the right  (6-27-19)


The "playroom" is very versatile with multiple fence sections. The space can be made smaller than this or divided into two sections for two litters. Puppies are in this area after 4-5 weeks of age.  (6-27-19)

The good thing is that staff and volunteers clean and disinfect the floor and all the items in the whelping room, nursery, and playroom at least every twelve hours. The hard part is finding volunteers willing to do all that laundry, so kennel staff often has to help out.

I did Laundromat duty twice when I was there in June; Jim was there to help me the second time. Truth be told, we hated it. The bags were very heavy, the Laundromat was crowded, hot, and noisy with screaming kids, and it seemed to take forever for the items to get dry even when we spread them out in numerous dryers.

I didn't know any better the first time. The second time we did it because no one else was available and we knew how important it was to have clean items for the puppies and dogs.


This is Cider, the resident cat in the puppy center. He literally watches over the 
puppies and teaches them to be nice to cats. He is a *very* tolerant cat! (6-24-19)


Cider visits "his" puppies often, and sometimes gets right in the pen with them.
These are five of Elaine's Lab puppies at seven weeks of age.  (6-24-19)

Duties that were not only easier but much more fun and satisfying involved "puppy watching," cleaning all the surfaces in the puppy areas and their hard toys, doing enrichment activities with the pups, helping to feed them, taking them outside to the deck or Mom Yard, and walking the adult dogs in the adjacent fields. 

Trained volunteers who live locally can sign up online for "puppy watching" shifts lasting from two to twelve (overnight) hours. During this visit I was assigned to a few shifts in the puppy center to work with more experienced volunteers so I could learn the various tasks for each shift.

Some hours during the day when the puppies normally sleep no shifts are assigned. I sometimes worked those hours and assisted Danielle with miscellaneous puppy and adult dog tasks.


Danielle's two dogs, Kiefer and Leo, come to work with her most days. They are also a good influence on
the young puppies. Leo was in WCC Laura's Band of Brothers Litter but had some health issues so he
won't be going on to advanced training. As an "underdog," he's a favorite of the EPWs. (6-24-19)


I'm a big fan of Leo. He's a lovable goof and was fun to take on walks in the fields. He is six
months old in this picture taken 6-24-19 and was noticeably bigger on my second visit in July.

I was not able to work with Skye's litter in the whelping room on my first visit. Her puppies were born the first night I was there. Whelping volunteers must take a two-hour training course before they can care for puppies under three weeks of age. I did help care for them in July when they were a month old.

After Skye's whelping there were a total of 25 puppies in the puppy center during my first visit.


One of my EPW friends who volunteers regularly at WCC took this photo of Skye and her puppies when 
they were four days old. These pups were the biggest at birth of any previous WCC litter.  (6-28-19)

I loved caring for the two older litters while I was there in late June and later wished I had been with them even more.

I knew better on my second visit what I wanted to do -- and that didn't include laundry and scooping poop in the corral! I paid my dues the first visit.

FREEDOM LITTER

This large litter of ten Labs -- one yellow and nine black -- belonging to WCC's Elaine x ACTS's Taz were whelped May 6.

Here are some staff and volunteer photos that were posted to Facebook and screen shots I took from the live cams their first seven weeks:

 


Six days old, with their first new collars and cute little puppy butts!  (5-13-19)


3½ weeks old, using Mr. Caterpillar's soft body segments as pillows  (6-1-19)


"Spillage" from the too-small puppy bed; all ten are there (6-9-19, almost 5 weeks old)

This litter was seven weeks old during our first visit.

By then these pups were very active and had quite sharp teeth! It was much easier to cuddle with them individually or in twos and threes than to be in their pen or on the deck with all ten unless most or all of them were sleeping.

I went back one evening after returning to the hotel to capture this live cam screen shot of myself in the playroom pen with the pups on June 27:

I was always aware of the Explore cameras inside and out while I was on campus, and tried not to do anything stupid! The cam ops often don't show the faces of staff, volunteers, and puppy petters to give them a little more privacy, but I've seen a few things people have done the past year that are rather embarrassing.

The next two pictures I took from inside the playroom enclosure while I was there:

Above and below:  puppy piles! It's sometimes hard to tell how many
pups there are, or which legs belong to which pup, in all-black piles.

On two of the days I helped Danielle feed the Labs their mid-day meal individually while they were out on the deck and in the Mom yard. It was a lesson on impulse control where the pups had to have all four feet on the ground as we hand-fed them a few moistened pieces of kibble at a time.

Miss Orange (identified by her collar color), the only yellow Lab in this litter, literally "stood out" among all her black Lab siblings the whole nine or ten weeks she was at WCC.

She was quite a character and couldn't get away with anything because of being the most visible puppy in any pile with her littermates. The EPWs, on-site volunteers, and live cam internet viewers all posted more comments and photos of her than any of her individual brothers and sisters.


Miss Orange on top of the puppy pile  (6-3-19, almost 4 weeks old)


Sweet little Miss Orange during my visit, almost 7 weeks old  (6-24-19)

These puppies had all moved on to their Puppy Parents when I returned a month later. Most stayed with WCC.

Since the sire belonged to a service dog organization in New Hampshire, ACTS, they got to choose which puppy they wanted -- to no one's surprise, they picked Miss Orange! They named her Fennel and because so many of Warrior Canine's EPWs love her, many of us follow her on ACTS's Facebook page. She's still a character and learning fast.

These five pups remained with WCC and have their own FB litter page. Some of the pups also have individual FB or IG pages.


Elaine's Freedom Litter at about 9 weeks of age

REMEMBRANCE LITTER

I've had six Labs but never a Golden retriever so I've been pretty fascinated to watch the Golden puppies on the live cams the past year. The Remembrance Litter was especially fluffy and adorable, so I was really looking forward to caring for (and cuddling!) them. I also have a larger collection of pictures of the Remembrance Litter than any of the others.

WCC Dawn x SEGD Moose's litter of eight puppies was born May 26. Here are a few pictures of them before I visited the campus:


Danielle Young, puppy and breeding specialist, took this photo the day after the whelping.


I think Laura M., a regular volunteer, took this sweet photo of Dawn with one of her babies. (6-8-19)


Screen shot of Miss Purple, who has beautiful "angel kisses" (white spots) on her face.  (6-17-19)

Dawn's puppies had just turned four weeks old when I was on campus in late June, almost the perfect age because they were starting to be more playful but their teeth weren't at the piranha stage yet!

It was pleasant to sit in the pen with all of them at once and not be overwhelmed or have blood drawn like with the older Freedom Litter. At this age the puppies are very lovable, as shown in the next photo where Miss Pink is licking my neck:


Puppy love  (6-26-19)


That's me in the pen with Miss Pink and her littermates;
I saved this screen shot later that night. (6-24-17)

 


Those eyes! and sweet innocent faces  (6-26-19)

 

 


Jim took this picture of me sitting beside the fencing, petting Dawn's puppies while they slept.  (6-26-19)

Can you see why I fell in love with this litter of adorable Goldens??

I also got to share several of this litter's "firsts" -- their first feeding of mush (Danielle did a live Facebook broadcast of that) . . .

 

. . . their first time outside (in an Outward Hound doggie pouch) . . .


I took four of the puppies out (one at a time) and don't remember 
which one this is but oh, my, look at that adorable face!!  (6-25-19)

. . . and their first time outside being carried in our arms.

The best part of the day when Jim was there was carrying Dawn's puppies outside one at a time in our arms and walking around in the shade for five minutes with each one.

Jim just beamed happily when he held each puppy in his arms and they licked his neck or arm, testament to the affect a little puppy can hold over the wizened veterans who Warrior Canine Connection encourages to volunteer!

 

I was happy that a few of the puppies in this litter were still on campus when I returned a month later. I'll have a few more photos of them on the next page.

THOUGHTS ABOUT MY FIRST VISIT TO WCC

I had some unfinished business at the end of this visit.

Although the experience was generally positive and I learned a lot about the organization and puppy enrichment, I was exhausted from the physical labor and disappointed that I didn't have more time observing the older service dogs in their training sessions or caring for Dawn's litter of Goldens.

I also knew I wanted to go back up again for the whelping training so I could help with puppies under three weeks of age.


Elaine's Miss Orange (now Fennel) relaxes on my lap.  See what I mean about
those sharp little puppy teeth after five or six weeks of age??  (6-27-19)

After I got back home I profusely thanked (again) the staff members and a couple volunteers I worked with the most for the time and expertise they shared with me.

I signed up for whelping training at the end of July and sent the puppy-watching and kennel scheduler a list of the things I wanted to do when I was there on my second visit.

Then I even more avidly watched the Explore live cams and various Facebook posts as Elaine's Freedom Litter moved on to their Puppy Parents, Dawn's and Skye's litters got older, and two more litters of puppies were born . . .

Next pagelots more puppy pictures from my second visit a month later to Warrior Canine Connection

Happy trails,

Sue
"Runtrails & Company" - Sue Norwood, Jim O'Neil, Casey-Girl, and Holly-Pup

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© 2019 Sue Norwood and Jim O'Neil

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