As we gear up to send another litter home, I thought I’d go into the preparation part and what goes on before the weekend hits and how the puppy delivery day transpires.

I’ll also be sharing what goes home with each puppy for reference for later future adopters.

Today the puppies go into the vet for their physical examinations, micro-chips (for those owners requesting them) and health certificates (required for those puppies crossing state lines or country borders). Our puppy exam day is usually always the Friday before the puppies go home. So Friday is busy with transporting puppies to and from the vet and there’s not much time for anything else.

Saturday is my day “off”, but Saturday night after sundown you’ll find me finishing puppy packets (although my goal is to have these done before the weekend!) and grooming puppies. Each puppy will have their bath, nails trimmed, ears cleaned, hair trimmed around the eyes (if needed). Then they’re tucked into a clean bed for the night. After that, it’s time to load my truck with puppy packets (more on those later), a crate (or two depending on how many puppies are going) bed, a blanket to cover the crate, extra towels for accidents, wipes, a garbage bag, water and food dishes, puppy food, the litter box, extra bags of pellets for anyone who needs them on their trip home, and my bag full of grooming supplies to use at our puppy meeting.

Sunday morning I’m up early to make sure the puppies have breakfast early so it has time to settle before we hit the road. There are two ways to leave my house (left/north or right/south) and either road is windy and occasionally a puppy will get carsick.

There are also regular chores to do; letting the adults out (and back in again if it’s inclement weather) taking care of other moms and babies, feeding the horses, etc. (hubby helps too).

Then it’s time to load puppies and hit the road! We’ve got about a two hour and twenty-minute drive to the airport in good weather, longer in winter when I drive s-l-o-w. I like to leave so I have plenty of time to get there ahead of everyone so I can check into my room (I rent a meeting room at a hotel at the airport for our “puppy meeting”), potty the puppies, offer them some food and water and then get everything set up in the room before welcoming our adoptive families at 10:30.

We all meet as a group and go over puppy packets, give a short grooming demonstration, answer questions, visit and take pictures (of course). Some families drive and some coming from further distances fly in the night before and stay at the hotel (which offers discounts to my puppy families) so then they’re free to head home after we’re done.

So what’s in the puppy packets? Each puppy has a bag of goodies to take home which includes some of the puppy food its been eating, a homemade baby blanket (so it has something familiar from its first home), some toys, a NuVet sample, and other various things I think might be useful. Then there is a folder of paperwork. I like to include a picture of the puppy’s parents, some information about the Nuvet supplement, the health record which includes dates of physical, fecal exam, deworming schedule, vaccination given (and penciled in, next vaccinations due), the health sheet that my vet fills out for each puppy at it’s physical exam time, microchip info if puppy received one, health certificate if puppy got one and a “booklet” of puppy information. The booklet is something I have put together and gets revised and added to as needed. I’ve tried to think of everything a new puppy owner may have questions about and include it there.

I hope this has been helpful for anyone wondering and for future puppy families!