A Twenty Nine Week Old #SAGApupVolt

Oh my goodness I missed my boy so much!!! He has GROWN so much! He doesn't even look like a puppy anymore! He's beautiful and sleek and soft with the most beautiful face!

He was castrated last week Monday as per SAGA's policy for 6 month old male puppies in training, and I couldn't fetch him from kennels until his stitches had been taken out on Friday.

I took him to be weighed this morning and he tipped the vet's scale at a whopping 30.95kg!! He is now 55.5cm tall at the shoulder (50cm is the minimum height requirement for a guide-dog, 65cm is the maximum height) so he's just right!

When my husband went to fetch him out of the kennel (I was waiting at puppy block) he was happy to see him, but he was having so much fun with his kennel-mates!
We were warned by our PDS that Volt was feeling very sorry for himself as his knackers are still a little tender where he'd been stitched, but he also had several "hot spots" on his head and his hair had been shaved in places so they could be treated. What happens when puppies like to wrestle like Volt does, they get each other down on the ground and they chew on each others' jowls, lips and neck which is like a chaffing action. It gets scratched and raw so SAGA shaves the hair off to let them heal. Volt was kennelled with his brother Vincent for a while and it seems the two of them competed mightily to decide who was boss. Its not fighting, but it is very rough playing.
He was happy to see us, but you would never guess we'd been seperated for two whole weeks! He's not at all phased by being away from us- which is a good thing- but I was kind of hoping for more of an "OH-MY-GAWD-WHERE-HAVE-YOU-BEEN-I-THOUGHT-YOU-WERE-NEVER-COMING-BACK!" sort of greeting... heh heh.

Volt in his kennel

When we fetched him we also picked up a puppy we have named Riddick- bred by SAGA and part of the 'A' litter out of Liberty sired by Pele- that we have adopted as a forever pet because he has no pupils in his eyes and so can't be trained as a guide-dog. I'm blogging all about him here so you can read about him as he grows up.
Volt's socialisation training meant he accepted the new baby immediately, and he loves having someone to play with, but he is a little jealous over the attention the new baby gets and we are working on him sharing his toys. Volt, Thelma and Louise all get lots of attention every day from me away from each other so that they never feel like they have to compete for love. As when Volt first arrived, I won't be leaving the new puppy alone with Volt, Thelma or Louise until he's a little bigger and can stand up for himself a bit.

meeting Riddick

meeting Riddick

In this next photo you can see some of the shaved hot spots on the top of Volt's head.

And here you can see how Volt and little Riddick sleep and play together.

 

And in this pictures, you can see how Volt has BOTH the bottles he was playing with outside under his head so that the puppy couldn't play with them!

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Don't forget to check out the Twitter hash-tag #SAGApupVolt to see regular updates on my puppy raising adventure!

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