WW Litter Visits Tongue River Elementary
43 Days Old    2/28/22

I thought for a while that these photos were unusable, being too dark and too brown.  At least that’s how they showed on my PC.  I felt really bad about not having photos for the kids to enjoy, so I finally tried editing them on my laptop.  Some were okay while some were still way too dark. Turns out most of the problem was the monitor on my PC, which I’m in the process of replacing.

Facing one direction gave the best lighting, and facing another way gave the darkest/brownest tints, but one has no choice other than move around the outside of the play area as the kids and pups move around.  Otherwise all you get are shots of their back sides – no fun.  DAYS of photoshopping and then lightening all the photos ended up with some that everyone could enjoy.  So here you go…

Tessa came shortly before 9 a.m. to help me load the pups and go with me to help at Tongue River Elementary.  Litters often yell the entire fifteen-mile journey, but this bunch was much quieter, possibly because Tessa could turn and look at them and croon to them.

I take an ex-pen and the school provides a tarp, and we create a play area.  The kids go inside to play with the pups during their regular Reading Dog time – and we always have drop-ins who hear the noise and come to investigate.  The pups soon crash, so some of the kids are greeted by comatose pups, and some with awake pups, luck of the draw.  I always take a bunch of noisy toys and the kids enjoy making noise if the pups won’t play.  Each toy makes a different sound, so they sometimes sound like a band tuning up.  Every so often a pup will open one eye as if to say “Quiet, please.”

One toy I took has a blue fuzzy cover with a face over a battery-operated black “ball.”  The Velcro closure wasn’t working well today and the ball would fall out, which the kids found fascinating. The switch is hard to find, but when they find it the ball shrieks and vibrates for about 15 seconds. 

The pups had a great experience of noise and their first introduction to kids.  We finished at 11:30.  By the time we pottied and loaded them, then went back to pick up toys and ex-pen, fold up the tarp and leave the room as it was, then drove home, it was 12:30, quite the long adventure for the babies.