Puppy Play Day - 4 months old

Yesterday we took Dakota to my friend Karen's house for a play date with her litter brother Finder. The owner of another littermate was able to come over too, so I got to see her brother Traveler again.

The pups had a wonderful time, of course! And as expected, Dakota did her energizer bunny bit and wore everybody out.

But she did sleep after we got home, and is still a bit quiet today. So we have discovered what it takes to tire her out...

Four and a half solid hours of this:

All 3 pups are brindle so it can be hard to tell them apart: Traveler is the darker brindle with the blue collar and natural ears. Dakota has a pink collar and no tape on her ears*. Finder's ears are taped up and he has a purple collar.

With some of this:


And more of this:




Then things would slow down a little:

This one completely cracks me up!! I think Dakota is holding Finder down until he says "Uncle"!

Then they would pick up again:
There were a few breaks for visiting with the humans present:


The two boys eventually settled down:

- you may notice that Dakota is in all of the play photos even though usually only one of the boys is involved - they took turns resting but she was always ready to go! This was the only still photo I got of her all afternoon:
A good time was had by all, as they say.

*I'll write a post soon on ear taping since a lot of people ask me how I do it. The reason Dakota's weren't taped is that this fell on a "rest" day - normally the ears stay taped up for a week or so, then the tapes are removed for a day or two, repeat. Her ears are standing very well, but start to droop after a few days so they still need to be taped. I think she should be done in another few weeks though.
And yes, Traveler's ears are taped down. There is no sticky against his throat, there are 2 pieces of tape sticky side to sticky side attached to the ear tips. One of his ears had started to go wonky (sticking up and twisting) which can happen when a puppy is teething. This is a simple and comfortable way to correct that. If natural ears have to be taped it usually only has to be done once - you just leave the tape on until it starts to come off, usually a couple of weeks.