Tuesday started at 3:30 in the morning when my son Noah and I drove to the airport to send two of my girls — Diana and Kazi — to their new home in Connecticut. Diana is five years old, fully mature, and as trustworthy as they come with livestock. Kazi is her younger companion, and they’ve been living together here on the farm getting along beautifully. They’re now guarding 80 sheep, 75 ducks, and 250 chickens on a 106-acre operation that raises livestock for a food bank. A real working ranch with real working dogs doing important work. I couldn’t be prouder of those two.
Airport deliveries always take longer than you might think.
By the time we got the paperwork done, the crates weighed and inspected, and the forms filled out, it was late morning. I was already running on almost no sleep. I was debating whether to stop for breakfast on the way home when I pulled up the puppy parlor camera on my phone and saw Marisa — who wasn’t quite supposed to be due yet — pacing and digging outside.
We drove straight home.
Kazi waiting to go to her exciting new life in Conneticut
I spent the rest of the day camped out in the puppy parlor.
I had a Zoom meeting in there. I had a client call in there. I fell asleep in my chair in there more than once. Puppies finally all arrived after dark. Marisa is doing great, the puppies are healthy, and I have a brand new litter here on the farm. More details on that coming soon.
Proud mom, Marisa, and her new babies
But before all of that — I need to tell you about Emma’s family in Oregon, because this one made my whole week.
Two of my seven-month-old females, Caitlin and Napheesa (yes, the owners named them after WNBA players 🏀), shipped out via ground transport to a small goat farm in Oregon last week. Emma, the mom, had purchased the Dial Method® before the dogs even arrived. Her six-year-old daughter had been going through the videos with her and practicing what she learned — including the pat, pat-pause technique — on the family cats.
The morning the dogs were supposed to arrive, the little girl came running out of her room as soon as it was light to ask if they were there yet. She couldn’t wait. And here’s the thing — this child had never really had experience with dogs before. These were her first.
When the girls finally pulled up that afternoon, she wasn’t scared at all. She was practicing exactly what she’d learned from the videos, calm and confident, while Caitlin and Napheesa settled in with the kind of quiet steadiness that makes Maremmas Maremmas. Their body language was so relaxed that the does with newborn kids in nearby stalls were already starting to understand these dogs weren’t a threat.
“They’re both so sweet in such different ways,” Emma texted me. “We couldn’t be happier to have them here.”
That right there is the whole point.
Grandkids Farm Sleepover
And on Saturday, before any of this airport-and-puppy chaos happened, I took four of my grandkids to visit the baby horses at my vet’s farm down the road. They’d spotted a foal from the golf cart and I figured — well, why not. Kayla opened the gate, the girls went right in, and we spent the better part of an hour just enjoying baby horses in the California afternoon. This farm started with horses before it ever had goats or dogs, and moments like that remind me why. That’s what farm life is supposed to feel like.
Later that night, Titus — my companion Maremma — did what he always does when the grandkids sleep over. He left his dog bed and planted himself right at the foot of the couch where they were sleeping. He didn’t move all night. No child ever had a more devoted guardian angel than Titus.
Titus on guard duty
Now, the stuff you need to know if you’re in the process of getting a PPF Maremma:
I’ve made some significant updates to how the program works — payments, reservation structure, go-home windows and shipping options. Some of it is new. Some of it has always been true but wasn’t written down anywhere clearly enough. But the most exciting is our new Extended Farm Stay program. I wrote a blog post about the program.
If you’re on the Master Reservation List, waiting on a litter, or thinking about getting a dog in the next several months, this blog post is worth reading before you make any plans:
Your Best Next Step Is a Conversation, Not Another Article.
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