We're fostering a German Shepherd and her litter of six puppies for Woods Humane Society...
And since I've got a lot of G-scale model train equipment at my house...
I thought it would be interesting to see how the puppies reacted to seeing the trains in action.
I set up a simple oval track on our patio...
And at first, they didn't pay much attention to it.
One pup was busy eating, and the other five were busy playing on the lawn.
But pretty soon, the train started to catch their attention... and that's when all the fun began!
The pups stayed back at a safe distance, at first.
And I laughed when a tennis ball got knocked on to the tracks...
And was a little surprised that not only did it not derail the train...
But that the train managed to just keep pushing that ball around the track!
The pups are six weeks old now...
So I knew that they were confident and strong enough that the train wasn't going to scare them...
And this Piko-brand track cleaning locomotive is lightweight and operates with such little energy...
That it poses no threat to the pups...
Even if one stands right in front of it, and there's a crash...
Which believe me, is going to happen eventually, it's just a matter of time!
There was a little bit of a close call here...
Momma dog was straddling the tracks...
But she did it just right, and the train went under her like she was a bridge.
And here was another close call...
When one of the puppies sat pretty close to the tracks...
But there wasn't any impact, this time.
After I moved the tennis ball out from in front of the train...
We had our first real collision.
And as you watch this, let me just assure you again that none of the puppies ever got hurt by the train...
Because that's a really lightweight plastic train...
Just powered by a few AA batteries, and it just doesn't have much power behind it.
So, here we go... with our first real puppy versus train incident!
It certainly got the puppy's attention, but believe me, it was an insignificant impact.
It really is a very lightweight train.
Now let's do a little montage... of a few other collisions, and a few close calls.
I did have to stop the train at one point...
Momma dog decided to feed them right on the tracks!
But other than this one little break from running the train...
The puppies had quite a bit of time to get used to that little lightweight train running on the tracks...
And they figured out that the path of the train is very predictable...
And how to stay out of its way.
They actually lost interest after a while, and pretty much just ignored the train from a safe distance.
So, I decided to take things to a new level.
I figured they'd probably find it hard to ignore a train that actually made realistic train sounds...
[Sound of a steam train whistle]
I got out one of my Piko steam locomotives, that has fantastic digital sound effects built in to it.
It's controlled via WiFi from an Android tablet...
And I had my wife handle that, while I did the camera work.
Those chugging sounds that this locomotive makes, and the realistic steam train whistle...
Definitely got the attention of a couple of the pups...
Especially the big round white one we call SnowBall...
Who seemed particularly interested in following this train around and seeing what it was all about.
But by this point, all the pups knew not to get in front of the train...
And we really didn't have any crashes, only a few close fly-bys.
No pups were in any danger or were harmed in any way in making this video...
I would never do that to a puppy!
And no trains were damaged, either.
We'll have the pups for about a week and a half more, before we head out on our next cruise!
The pups are doing well on solid food, but still nursing from mom, too.
But by the time we turn them back over to Woods Humane Society so that they can be adopted out...
They will be fully weaned.
Hit the thumbs up button if you got a smile out of watching this video!
And leave a comment about which you think is more fun...
Puppies, or model trains!