This Article appeared in the August 29th Edition of the Seward Journal
The last two weeks have been jam-packed here at Turning Heads Kennel. Our puppies continue to grow, the leaves have, it seems started to turn, and the cold wind that signifies summers end has begun to blow again. On the rainier nights, we’ve begun taking our teams out on longer runs. They’ve enjoyed stretching their legs and seeing new terrain.
Our mornings start early. We wake to wagging tails and barks of enthusiasm as soon as we step out into the yard. Our oldest group of puppies, now five months old are let out of their pen first thing in the morning. They jump on us, happy to see us and then they tear across the dog yard to greet the big dogs, their excitement generally welcomed. We scoop the yard as the big puppies (there are 5 of them, 3 born in our kennel, 2 adopted, all boys: Max, Drew, Levi, Wrangler & Carhartt) wander and play with the dogs and, by the time we’re done, the puppies are generally ready to be corralled back to their pen.
Then, it’s feeding time. After feeding, we let the little puppies loose. The little puppies are now two months old and they are the sweetest little girls: Pinky, Brain, Pickles, and Porkchop. On nice days and days when we aren’t overly busy, we take them for a walk around our property letting them take in the sights and smells of Alaska’s foliage. The devil’s club and firewood are far taller than our young pups, but they run into it without hesitation chewing on leaves and branches as they go. It’s easy to tell where they’ve been in our yard as the vegetation has
been trampled. Our once beautiful flowerbeds full of daisies and forget-me-nots hang closer to the earth than they once did from all the puppy feet who have run over them, but it’s well worth it. Our puppies are happy, eager, confident, and fearless.
Once the girls are back in their kennel, we play with our newest additions, who recently turned a month old. It was a small litter — just one male and one female. We hadn’t had much luck with names until one of our guests suggested Bonnie and Clyde. It stuck. Though they’ve only taken to walking and wandering recently, we can already see their personalities begin to develop. Bonnie eagerly greets any new person, challenge, or dog headed her way. Clyde is slightly more reserved. We continue to work with both and are happy to see that with love and time, Clyde is continuing to come out of his shell.
When morning chores are done and everybody has been fed and played with for the day, tours begin for the day. There are always little projects to do throughout when we don’t have guests: building houses, raking gravel, scooping the yard, and then scooping it again. Time passes quickly and before we know it, the sun is going down and it’s time to feed the dogs again. If we’re lucky, and we have been, the weather is cool enough to run and we take a team out to train. Even after a full day of tours, they want to run and see new land. Somewhere in there, we find time for ourselves: time to eat, time to do a load of laundry, but not much. We go to sleep tired and wake up eagerly, like the dogs, to do it all over again.
