Driving them off without hurting any is surprisingly difficult!

Still, they'll manage it, and even successfully trap two.

"A net would be useful."

"Hey, Hana, know where we can get a net around here?" Hisame says, over a double armful of wriggling puppy.

"Could get you a tarp, maybe," says their ally, who's stuck to being only useful for tracking. (She seems amused.)

"That may serve as well."

Then, once they have the latest two puppies deposited with Elieyha, she points out the tarps.

Chihiro will take two.

Hisame takes two as well.

"Setting traps is going to be hard with our time limit..." she muses.

"An ambush would be easier. One to bait, one to use the tarp."

"I can be the bait, then, if you want to close the trap."

"I will wait above. Lead them past me."

"Will do."

And off to find a suitable location for this, and start luring the puppy pack in.

There's a clear spot under where the high branches of two trees meet that is suitable.

Perfect.

Hisame is quite quickly able to lead the puppy pack (now approaching a horde) by Chihiro's location. The puppies don't look up, too focused on Hisame, who's fleeing in an exceptionally exciting manner.

And Chihiro drops down from above the heaviest concentration of puppies with two tarps spread out, edges weighted down with chakra.

Puppies yelp and yip and try to scatter, but Hisame turns on them, causing several to backpedal and prevent their buddies from fleeing effectively.

Including the two that Hisame simply snatches, they net an entire nine puppies. Three escape, running into the woods.

(Including the escaping three, there's ten puppies they haven't grabbed, and one hour left on the clock. If Chihiro's fast, she may be able to leave Hisame to manage the tarps while she runs down the puppies - which do tire fairly fast.)

If Hisame is confident she can control them...

She is.

Then Chihiro will go chase down the remaining puppies at speed.

One of them can be caught, another falls over from exhaustion (letting him be scooped up rather easily), and the third figures out that she needs to hide - but Chihiro will be able to spot some disturbed leaves leading into the tree roots the puppy squeezed herself into.

Presumably better stealth will be part of their later training. For now, however, her skills are superior.

And Hisame has successfully kept the earlier nine under control.

Now, of course, they have a new problem: transporting twelve energetic puppies back to Elieyha.

They still have two extra tarps to help hold them.

Twelve puppies over four tarps works, but does mean their arms are rather loaded up - would they rather have one person carrying all the puppies, and risk spilling but have one person open for guarding, or take six puppies each...

Six puppies each is Chihiro's opinion.