Transcript
00:00:01
Hi friends this episode is about our puppies experiencing their very first real snow.
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It happened last week and at a year and a half old it was their first chance to fall in love with an aspect of winter that everyone here at Foggy Oak Farm already adores.
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That is, if the puppies can get over how scared they are of this mysterious white stuff that keeps falling from the sky.
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Let's learn how Orion and Christoph went from terrified to thrilled, with some help from their parents.
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If you've been listening for a while, you may remember that in June 2022, about a year and a half.
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Ago, our dog Rose had eight puppies here at Foggy Oak Farm. I talked about them in the episode, the disappearing puppies.
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They grew by leaps and bounds, and one by one they left for their new homes. Some went to farms, some to cities, some to towns, and two well, two stayed right here at Foggy Oak Farm.
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Both puppies clock in at well over 100 lbs and are as tall as our six year old's shoulder when they're standing.
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If you stand them on two legs and put their front paws on your shoulders, they're as tall as me.
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Christoff looks like a giant black lab with short black fur and a huge head with sweet brown eyes. He has a tail that curls like a pig's with a.
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White tip and each of his feet end in white.
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Socks with black speckles.
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He got all of the lab from his Labradoodle dad and a nice touch of Great Pyrenees from his fluffy white mom. His bark is all his moms, though. You can always recognize him by.
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The deep.
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When he wants to make you aware of something.
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He sounds mean, but he's actually a big baby, scared of new things sometimes, afraid of even walking across our wood floors, that kind of thing.
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His brother Orian almost doesn't look related. He's a little bull here, but the same height as Christoff. He has a primarily white coat with lots of black interspersed and three big black spots, which is how he got his name after the three stars in the constellation Orion's belt.
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His fur is scruffy and his black head has a big white stripe coming down the middle that arches into elaborate eyebrows, framing his own sweet brown eyes.
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He has long, scruffy hairs under his chin like his dad, so when he comes to greet you, it also unfortunately often comes with a big sigh of slimy wetness.
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From his drool from drinking from both.
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It's often unclear, but my pants look like a giant snail has crawled across them from where Ryan has run into me.
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Orion is typically bolder than Christoff, happy to explore and not afraid of our floors. But this week we ran into something that shook both of them to their core.
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You see, friends. One thing that hadn't happened in their first year of life.
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Was snow.
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And earlier this week, for the first time in their.
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Lives it snowed. Not a lot, mind you. We're in the mountains of Virginia, which is in the southern part of the United States, so we don't get a ton of snow except for the odd occasions when we get 2 feet at once. But for us, this less than an inch of snowfall.
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Was quite the event.
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It had been raining and gross all day.
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I had gotten absolutely covered in mud when I was doing the chores down at the chicken coop, but throughout the afternoon the temperature steadily dropped. We were well below freezing by the time the sun.
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Set and snow began to seem possible.
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My husband and I had been putting the girls to bed and when I came downstairs, the world outside was not the normal calm darkness of a country night, but a wild swirl of cascading snowflakes.
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I found Orion stretched out on the couch nearly asleep.
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Christoff was still upstairs, curled up on a giant bean bag in the kids room.
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Ryan first, I guess I thought to myself as I opened the porch door.
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Ohh Ryan. Come on buddy. Come see.
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The snow I crooned at him.
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Oh, Ryan barely raised his head off the sofa to regard me. He was cozy. He didn't want to get up.
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Come on, buddy. Come on.
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I wheedled walking out onto the porch myself to try and interest him.
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Curious, he roused himself and worked his way off the couch and out onto the porch.
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At first, he didn't notice this now.
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Then he did.
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Woo woo.
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He bellowed out at the swirling darkness.
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Orion, it's snow, I said. It's not scary. Get off the porch and go look at it, he continued, ignoring me as he warned away the menacing mystery debris that he thought very well could be alive and was falling everywhere all around him.
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Oh, for goodness sake. I huffed and slip back inside to go find Christoff.
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Maybe if the two of them were out together, it would be fun and not scary. When I step back inside, I saw Kristoff making his way down the stairs, curious about his brothers echoing and incessant barking.
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Christoph topher. Topher ton. I called him. Come here and see the snow.
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Christoph came gingerly over to me, looking a little skeptical about what was going on downstairs.
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I opened the door again and Ryan paused his barking to look at. Christoph. Christoph pushed past me and stepped out onto the porch as well, where his tail immediately shot between his legs and he assumed what we think of as his nervous posture.
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He thundered, joining Orion's chorus of.
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Woo woo woo.
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I rolled my eyes. They were just winding each other up and absolutely refused to leave the porch. I tried walking down the steps into the snowy grass myself. No dice. Christoph cautiously came down 2 steps, felt the snow fall on his head and practically bolted back up to the porch.
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Oh, Ryan. Never even pretended like he was going to follow me. Looking at me with a disdainful skepticism that I felt was entirely unwarranted, given my very good intentions.
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I threw my hands above my head in resignation.
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Fine, I said. Fine. You don't trust me, but I bet you'll trust your dad.
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I stomped up the stairs and went back inside yet again to fetch their dad, Lori.
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Laurie, I called Laurie, come show your puppies what snow is.
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I heard a long-suffering from the kids room upstairs and then the reluctant heave of Laurie's body as he dragged himself up from where he was curled on their.
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He appeared at the top of the stairs, looking at me curiously and gently wagging his tail.
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Come on, buddy. You gotta show them, I explained.
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Lorry reluctance forgotten, pranced down the stairs and rubbed himself along me like a cat.
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OK, cat, dog, I chuckled as I stroked his head.
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Let's go. And Lori and I walked to the door where we found the puppies still firmly planted on the porch, Orion barking at the snow and Kristoff cowering behind Orion.
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I opened the door and Laurie launched himself outside like a rocket, hurling himself off the porch and into the snowy yard.
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He sprinted around the perimeter and came back to run in circles around the trampoline and a paroxysm of delight until he paused and threw his front half to the ground, leaving his **** and tail in the air to waggle as he looked at Christoff and Orion in a clear invitation. Come get me his gaping mouth.
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Wide eyes demanded. Come chase me and with a.
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Gentle woof.
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He took off on his mad dash again.
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Orion and Christoff exchanged a glance like is it really safe? And as one appeared to decide that it was off, they shot after their father into the swirling snow and inky darkness.
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Laurie and Christoff are so dark that it was hard to make them out in the snow, but I could see Orion with his white coat a little better. They had caught up to Laurie and began chasing him with all their might.
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Occasionally they would stop and begin a ferocious wrestling match, throwing themselves down into the snow as they rolled and rolled and bit at each other's tails and ears.
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The play was interspersed with delighted and playful barks, and I turned to go back inside.
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The puppies were clearly no longer scared.
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That's when I saw Rose, who had been asleep in the office waiting at the door, her ears perked and her eyes light with curiosity.
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She didn't know about the snow before, but she knew now.
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Rose is a Great Pyrenees and Great Pyrenees were bred to be livestock guardians high in the Pyrenees mountains between France and Spain.
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Typically all white with a thick double coat. They prefer cool and cold weather, and they especially love snow.
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Rose doesn't tend to play as much as our other dogs as the top dog and mom of Orion and Kristoff. She has a certain amount of control and discipline that she wants to maintain, but when she plays, she plays hard.
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3rd and fresh falling snow is her absolute favorite time to play. She sprang outside like a puppy and ran full tilt at the tangle of Laurie and the puppies. She dove into them and initiated a rough and tumble round of chase where she ran as fast as she could away from the boys.
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Who, with their longer legs and younger bodies very quickly caught up with her and played their favorite game of pull Moms Tail bite Moms Legs, causing her to turn frantically back and forth as she wrestled them.
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When she crashed to the ground as Laurie and the boys had before her, she rolled about in the snow with the puppies clearly having the time of her life. It was her first snow with her puppies, after all, and perhaps she wanted to make it just as special and fun for them as it was for her.
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They were all in their own world. I couldn't get them in until they had played without pausing for at least a couple of hours.
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When they finally agreed to be called inside, they were panting, soaking wet, covered in rapidly melting snowflakes, and, yes, transcendently happy. The snow lasted through the night, and when I got up in the morning and came downstairs, I was treated to the sight of both my daughters romping and the light dusting of snow.
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With the no longer exhausted, still transcendently happy dogs.
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They all played until the very last moment when my girls needed to leave for school and by mid morning the snow had melted entirely, as if it had never been.
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We're all hoping for a real snowfall this winter, but in the meantime we'll have the amusing memory of seeing the puppies experience their first snow from terror to tentative interest to delight.
00:12:59
Many of us are heading into the holiday season and this is going to be the last episode of Season 2, though supporters will also be getting their monthly bonus episode.
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I appreciate you so much for being here and listening.
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I hope you are cozy. If it's cold and cool, if it's hot and I hope you enter the new year knowing how very special and loved you are.
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That's it for this season and this year and we'll be back with season three in a bit.
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Thanks for being here.