Dentbros Dogs get together for a reunion!

When you find the best homes for your puppies, you make friends with the owners and you stay in touch. I now have WhatsApp groups for each litter, so that the owners can talk to each other and share stories and problems. It’s brilliant. Even better, when we have a reunion!

The natural progression from this is a desire to meet up, which is lovely. Of course this year has presented its own challenges! But meeting up in a big open space and then having a picnic is fortunately now allowed, so yesterday we were able to do this.

One litter, or several

It might seem sensible to have only one litter at a time meet up – I know the owners were especially pleased to see the owners of their dog’s siblings. However, some owners have more than one puppy from me. And of course my girls usually have more than one litter. Either way, they are all related!

I also think it’s nice for the owners of the younger dogs to see the progression they make – what they look like as older, more mature dogs. It was lovely to have 5-year-old Charlie demonstrating this – he’s such a lovely boy!

The perfect location for a reunion

Ideally, people want to buy a puppy from someone down the road. Sadly, this is not possible, especially if you are buying from a Responsible Breeder. So although some of my puppies do live nearby, many do not. Trying to find a location that will be a manageable distance for as many as possible was a real challenge.

Luckily, I had been riding in Windsor Great Park on several occasions – I highly recommend Tally Ho Stables for this. I knew there were big open spaces with easy walking and points of interest. I was a bit worried about toilets and would have loved a café. But I suggested a picnic and we decided that gave us a bit more flexibility anyway.

Pleased to see me?

Some of them were! Most of them had forgotten me. If I see them fairly often, they do remember me and are happy to say hello. Usually they are not bothered. That’s fine.

What about their mum? Are they pleased to see her? And she them? Not a chance! Once they’ve gone, they’ve gone, that’s it. When they live somewhere else, they take on the smells from their new home, so then they become a strange dog. It’s easy to think the mums aren’t pleased to see their babies in case they want something from them! I don’t credit my dogs with that much reasoning. I think they just don’t really like other dogs!

Sibling rivalry

Brother and sisters must get on though right? It must be lovely for them to meet up and play together at a reunion? Well a brother and a sister might find each other interesting, but we don’t want to encourage that do we? Brothers and sisters will often fight. They struggle to determine hierarchy and fight for dominance. This is especially true when there are lots of other dogs around. I’m sure you’ve seen children showing off in front of others they haven’t met. Dogs definitely do a bit of this.

Luna and her sister Nell always used to argue when I took my dogs to see my friend Jane. So it should have been no surprise when Mowgli and Hector got into a scrap yesterday. It wasn’t serious and didn’t last long, but unfortunately Mowgli caught his dew claw. I felt particularly responsible because I’d been trying to get a group pic without owners and then I ‘released’ mine. I should have made sure everyone grabbed their dog and kept things calm. Silly me!

Relaxing reunion picnic

I had already warned everyone that it would not be possible to ‘go for a walk’. It’s just too hectic with so many dogs and people – the pace is very slow! Still, we wandered around for a while and then headed back to the car park, where we sat in the shade and shared out delicious baked goodies! I took sausage rolls made Penne Rowley. The others had made various cakes and Tasha had even made dog flapjack! Yum.

This was when we really started to appreciate our beautiful Dentbros Dogs. They behaved so well – calm and relaxed, mingling and settling. No hassle.

Thank yous

I had wanted to make a speech, to thank them all for coming. I wanted to thank them for being such brilliant owners, for making me so proud to have bred their lovely dogs. Lots of the dogs are or will be competing in agility and quite a few do other things. Finding the right homes is a burden of responsibility, but I definitely got it right with all of these homes.

I thought it would be nice to give them a token, to thank them for coming and as a reminder of the day. But I realised I didn’t need to; they were ALL taking the best dog home! It was a brilliant reunion!

Buy the Workbook

The Workbook – A Year With Your Puppy is available to buy. It was written and designed to be a hands-on, interactive book for you. It will help you survive the first year with your puppy, but also act as a memento of that time and the journey you have been on. You can write notes and stick in pictures of your puppy throughout the year. Lovely!

Remember..

Please CONTACT ME if you want to know more about me and my dogs?  And feel free to COMMENT if you want to tell me what you think. 

NO PUPPIES AVAILABLE