Figs The Destroyer: 12 Weeks and Counting

Right now I'm sitting on the couch with Sage on my lap, Figs has positioned herself across from us at the furthest end. She's flopping her entire 18 pound body around like a mental patient in the midst of uncontrollable fits. She's making mouth noise at Sage and also invisible objects around the room, the ceiling and perhaps even on her own back. She rolls her eyes all wonky as she postures up and makes contorted faces. I can't help but laugh out loud. The second she settles down Sage sticks out a paw and pokes her and the puppy wackiness starts over in full swing. This my friends is Figs the Destroyer.

Volume Required

Not every puppy gets an ancient conqueror's name but quite frankly this little beast has earned it. It's been 5 weeks since we picked our little bundle of spots up in Wisconsin and Figs has since made herself well at home. She's recruited Sage as her BEST friend, she's stolen our hearts along with the toilet plunger and she has managed to bind this little family together with spotted love cement.

Toilet Plunger? I'll be taking that.....

Pita Prison Break

Figs beats to her own drum. After chewing an escape hatch out the back of Sage's dog cave she insists on using this as her personal entrance and exit. She likes to find any squeaker toy Sage hasn't yet obliterated and runs barely controllable laps around the kitchen and living room at full speed. I've considered buying her a T-shirt that says ride it like you stole it. She has a little motor in her that's always full tilt with puppy rips. Sage Monkey is going to have her paws full once this beast gets full grown. But as hard as she plays she crashes and snugs just as hard. At nap time she bebops over, stumpy tail at full swing and sits like she's saying, "Ok! You can hold me now please!"

Figgy's prey drive is off the scale and I have been dying to get her out on birds. We allocated some chukar this past weekend but the temperatures were down in the double digit negatives and the snow is still too high to properly give her an introduction. At this point our hotel chukar guests are sitting pretty until January Montana weather decides to get on board or at least give us a tiny window of opportunity. Until that occurs we'll keep working on her basic commands and housebreaking which is going incredibly well. She's smart (and cute) as a whip. We also managed to get a pretty nice whoa table from a local source so when the time comes we finally have everything we need.

12 week old Lex Luther

As Fig's prey drive is so high she has a sincere obsession with the cats. I went through this with Cleo, Luna and Sage and managed to get all three to have a happy and healthy relationship with them. With that said there are always bizarre bumps along the way with each dog. In the photo above the baby gate blocks entrance to our laundry room where we keep the cat food and litter boxes. Figs WAS sitting right on the other side of the gate but quickly learned the cats won't keep regularly scheduled movement through cat central station when she stands there. So she's learned if she sits on the bottom step of the stairs and waits until they jump over she can make her move on them when they least suspect it. It's all very clever and rather Lex Lutherish for a 12 week old puppy. Lots of work on the leave it command in our future.

Hopefully the next update comes with some pics and videos of intro bird work. Until then I leave with you a video of Sage playing possum. Be sure to find us and follow us on Facebook at: Adventures of a GSP.

Road Trip: Bringing Home our New Puppy

Last year I had contacted Sharp Shooter's Kennel in New Richmond, Wisconsin and went through the screening process to procure another GSP puppy. Sage's father is a Sharp Shooters's NAVHDA Versatile Champion and her mother has some SS bloodlines. I've seen my fair share of SS dogs in the field and knew that if I ever added to my pack that I would hope it would be with a pup from their kennel. A litter had been born on October 8th and lucky for us a female from the litter would be ours and would be available to be picked-up Thanksgiving weekend. Wyatt and I decided it would be the perfect time for a road trip.

We set out on Black Friday with Sage in tow as she was just coming out of heat. We spent Friday in Glendive, MT and then on Saturday commandoed across North Dakota, and Minnesota arriving to the quaint town of New Richmond, Wisconsin (we've dubbed it the round-about capital of the midwest) on Saturday evening.

Jessica Lieffort from Sharp Shooters was kind enough to let us come over Saturday night and visit our pup. We spent a couple of hours getting our fill of puppy breath (like there is such a thing), watching spastic puppy play and chatting with the breeders Clyde and Marilyn Vetter and Jessica. They couldn't have been more kind and professional. It really was such a lovely experience and we were very appreciative of their time and company, it alone was worth the 2,200 mile journey.

We chose not to take our new puppy home that night upon the very wise suggestion of Jessica. Instead we headed back to the hotel and toasted our new spotted dog child with a wonderful bottle of wine (thank you Marilyn and Jess), we held Sage a little extra tight and got a darn good nights sleep. Jessica gave us the opportunity to swing by in the morning and intro Sage to the pup and then we would head out for the 1,100 mile trip home.

Sage sucking up as much sleepy love as she can. It's borderline rude.  

We showed up to Jessica's at 8am sharp on Sunday chock full of excitement. We came in and snuggled our pup and her last litter mate. Then we brought Sage in to meet our pup. It's a super common question about the proper way to introduce an older dog to a puppy. I've done it before and I have to say that no matter how crafty you get there is always some ill feeling on the older dogs part. Once they realize what is happening they are a little less then pleased to varying degrees. So here is how our intro went:

Sage came down to the whelping room which is immaculate by the way. With that said it is full of lots of other dog smells and of course an adorable and perfect pup. Sage did the normal unsure growling and hopping about. Nothing out of normal in my humble opinion. It's a big event with a relative amount of pressure and after 2 days in car and a modified schedule it's a lot for anyone or any dog to take in. With that said I could tell Sage needed to use the bathroom and maybe get some space. I asked Jessica if it was OK to let her into her backyard to do her business. Part of the yard had been fenced off with puppy fencing to keep the small hooligans in.

I let Sage out and could immediately tell she was being pissy and she began to run and sniff the perimeter of the fenced area. As soon as she hopped the fence I knew that I was in trouble. She knew exactly what was occurring and like a toddler in the middle of temper tantrum she planned to drag me into deep water before she would submit. I winced and began what felt like a thousand yard walk over to the fence in pursuit. Sage was legitimately pissed about all this puppy business and was opting the route of giving me the paw. I called her around and she defiantly ran a lap by me before taking up residence in the nearby woods and proceeded to take a shit. But unlike any other poop she's had in the past she locked eyes with me the entire time making it as uncomfortable as possible as if she was was trying to tell me how much she hated me. I mumbled under my breath God help me and as she patched out backwards (not breaking eye contact of course) and I watched in horror as she transformed from my sweet beloved Sage into her insanely sassy and mouthy mother Cleo. It was one of those moments so many of us experience looking in the mirror or hearing our own parents rhetoric escape our lips. What the fuck was happening.

She proceeded to take off with the type of attitude only seen in hormonally charged and angry teenage girls as they scream at you, I HATE YOU, YOU RUINED MY LIFE, before stomping down the hallway and slamming their bedroom door with Emmy winning dramatic flair. She tore around Jessica's backyard before I could half tackle and drag her back to the house. Well this is going well I thought and as we re-entered the Leiffort residence I asked Wyatt if he would be kind enough to take our spotted time bomb out to the car.

We said our goodbyes and collected our fur baby and headed out to begin the long journey home. We named our puppy Sharp Shooters Sweet Mission and we shall call her Figs.

The trip home was long but not nearly as bad as we had thought it might be. Both dogs were very well behaved and slept most of the journey. We made it to Miles City, MT our first night together as a family and took up temporary residence in a pet friendly Best Western. It was the first opportunity we got to see Fig's personality as well as the first real opportunity to see Sage and Figs interact.

Sage was clearly wounded about the new family addition but still made small efforts. She would take a toy and poke it into Fig's head trying to get her play while growling awkwardly the entire time. Clearly conflicted play but positive nonetheless. It took Cleo almost 6 days to get to that point when Luna was introduced into the pack so realistically I was thrilled. We had a great first night and since we were on the road she got to sleep on my face while Sage took residence beneath the covers.

Hotel Ice Breaking Shenanigans

Wyatt decided to be the paparazzi when I passed out. Not sure if you 

can see that pup hogging my pillow.

We've been home in Bozeman since Monday afternoon. I took sometime off of work to spend with the girls to help get them transitioned and get on a schedule. It's been a real hoot. Figs has so much moxy and plays with spirited gusto. She loves to retrieve any toy to hand and she has been such a quick learn. I have been incredibly impressed with her intelligence and she is extremely cooperative and sweet. We already LOVE having her around. Sage is doing much better with her and they spent hours chasing each other around the kitchen and living room today and bebopping though fields. Things are going to be great and I can't wait to intro her to birds. There is so much to look forward to over the next several months.

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