Della's Night Out

If anyone deserves a night out, it's Della. And tonight was an event custom made for her too, a beer launch party at Three Notch'd Brewery, which was releasing a Big Dawg Blond Ale brewed in conjunction with The Animal Connection as a fundraiser supporting Dog Fest, which is happening this weekend.

BUT, before we got went there, we made a stop at Green Dogs for tonight's Canine 101 class, because the class consisted solely of Della's puppies. All but one of the pups was in attendance and they all recognized Della, of course. It was the first time they've all been together since the adoptions began happening over a month ago.

The pups all looked great. They are mostly around 50 pounds now, at 15 weeks of age.

Mother to mother

I'm not sure what Della thought about seeing them again, but she seemed happy and they were certainly happy to see her. It's a good thing we were outdoors because everyone squirted pee when they saw her, a combination of excitement and puppy submissiveness I expect. Della checked them all out and went into maternal protective mode and warned off the other resident dogs that she saw. But she was quite happy to leave them again and head to town. Her work with those pups, and ours, is done. The pups and their new families had things to learn in class, we went out for a beer.

Carlsberg (now Woody) with the distinctive black
sleeve that matches Della's.

It was a beautiful evening and the beer was very good. As soon as we arrived a young woman who worked there greeted us as we sat down. She recognized Della and knew her name and her story. In fact several people came up to meet Della who already knew her, and several more met her for the first time. She's a striking dog and Great Danes always gets attention. She was also very well behaved. We knew she'd be good with people, and she was also pretty good with other dogs in attendance. I wasn't sure how that would go, but without her puppies around to protect, she's better with other dogs. She'd give a low grumble at other dogs sometimes, but she's a talker, so it's hard to know what that meant, but I broke it off when that happened.

Della got a lot of treats, some meant for dogs and some that were part of our food. She didn't have to sit or do anything for them either. After all, she gave us 12 puppies.

Guinness (now Astro) giving mom a kiss.