(I bet you’re all getting a bit tired of my cowboy puns :P) But the cow-boys really did go home yesterday!

Handing over the puppies to their excited, new families is one of the most fun parts of being a dog breeder. They’ve been anxiously waiting for weeks (sometimes months) for their new furry bundle. They’ve watched the updates, got excited for each new picture and video, asked me numerous questions (which is great) and the day has finally arrived for them to actually lay their hands on that long awaited puppy. One of the things I hear most frequently is; “He (or she) is so much smaller then I thought he’d be!” It’s true. When you see the pups in pictures and even the videos with toys and things, they look so big. But then when you finally puts your hands on them, they seem so much smaller in person.

Yesterday started out early as I got up to do my regular chores and bathe the pups before heading to Spokane. Just so you all know, I do bathe each puppy before it gets handed over to their new owner. That being said, I can’t guarantee it will still look and smell fresh by the time I meet them. Yep, somebody got car sick yesterday and of course shared the mess with his brother. 😛

The quickest way to the Spokane airport is across the ferry and down the river until we hit Highway 2, then on into Spokane. Since that road is windier and had the possibility of being slicker, we decided to take my husband’s Subaru since my truck tires are not really “winter worthy”.

Thankfully, yesterday morning I had this urgency in my mind to be early. (Thank you God). My first puppy adopter was flying in to get her puppy then flying back home two hours later. I was aiming to get there when her flight arrived so we would have time together before she had to get herself and Wrangler checked back in.

So hubby and I headed to the ferry (south from our house about 11+ miles). The ferry runs on the hour and half hour on our side of the river. We got there a few minutes before it departed to the other side of the river. We rode it across and hit the highway south towards Spokane.

(Almost across the river.)

But as we turned onto the highway, my husband noticed a strange noise coming from his car. He’s very mechanical, so when he said to me, “I don’t think we should take my car” I knew we had to head home to get my truck. Thankfully, the ferry had not left that side of the river yet and we were able to turn the car around and drive back on. (I bet the ferry workers were wondering about us.)

Back across the river….*sigh* Then back home to trade vehicles.

Now, which way should we go? It takes about 15 minutes (on dry roads and it was lightly snowing) to get to the ferry, 15 minutes to ride across the river, 15 minutes to ride back across the river and another 15 minutes to drive back home. So you see, we had already wasted about an hour. When we left the house the second time, we had less then 15 minutes to get to the ferry. Do we chance it? If we miss it, we wait a half hour for the next one. Or do we go all the way around? We decided to take the safer route and not worry about the ferry this time. Although we were now late and this second route would take longer than the ferry way.

The lighter blue route that say “2 hours and 16 minutes” was our original plan. (It’s actually usually less then 2 hours that way.) Our second choice ended up being the dark blue route taking us through Spokane then SW to the airport.

Thankfully, the rest of the day was uneventful. And because we had originally left the house early, we were only about ten minutes late meeting Wrangler’s mom at the terminal. She was pretty happy to have her new baby.

Next we drove over to meet Cowboy’s lovely family.

Like I said, this is one of my favorite parts of raising puppies. <3

The rest of the day was spent doing a bit of grocery shopping, meeting #2 son who lives in Spokane and taking hubby out to eat for his birthday.

Even with the bumpy start, the day turned out well. And the cow-boys are home. Probably raising some new ruckus one their home ranges!  😉