Joys and Heartaches

This past week has been another time of joys and heartaches as a breeder.  We got a new stud that we just love.  He is three months old and we have a lot of tests to run on him to make sure he is a good breeder, but he is a love.  His name is Deacon and we got him from Bedrock Labradoodles.  Maggie is a dear to let us get Deacon.  She had been planning to keep him for her own program, but was willing to let us have him.  He is going to be a small standard in size and he is a dark apricot with the most luscious fleece coat.  He is still young enough that we understand how our buyers have to continue the training we begin in order to make sure that the puppies build on their training.  We are working hard with Deacon to make sure that he knows how to potty outside.  We take him out frequently, and we are still working on keeping an eye on him while he is inside.  He wants to please, but he is not familiar with our home yet, and we owe it to him to train him with what we want from him.  He is also doing really well with commands like sit, down, wait, and come.  It is a lot of work, but the result is an amazing dog who knows how to please us.

Deacon is also a very beautiful stud.  He has the boxy conformation we are looking for and a great face.  He is stunning.  We look forward to getting his tests back and being able to both use him in our program and studding him out to other breeders who are looking for the characteristics he brings:  great color, coat, temperament, and size.  We will have to take a lot of time and money to make sure that he passes the health tests.

Speaking of health tests, we had another heartache this week.  We had bred our girl Cappi recently and had hoped that she would produce a litter of reds and apricots with our boy Seeker.  When we went to have the ultrasound done we found out that she was not pregnant.  That was quite the blow to our plans for this year.  We struggled a lot with why.  We recently had her eyes retested (we do this every 12 to 18 months according to our breeding association guidelines) and found that she has a problem with her retinas.  The problem will mean that we cannot breed her (we have not had a litter with her yet and so she will never be a breeder) because her puppies will have serious problems that will lead to blindness.  Her problem is not so serious for her, it will not affect her quality of life, but it would be very serious for her puppies.  This did not show up at all in her earlier tests, but did show up now.  We are so grateful that she was not pregnant and that she will not produce puppies with vision problems.  We are very sad that such a beautiful girl with a wonderful temperament will not pass those characteristics on to puppies.  

As we have said before, breeding is not for the faint of heart.  

We are looking to have an open house in the coming months and in particular are looking for great trainers in our area to invite to meet us and our breeders.  If you know of any really good trainers in the Portland area, please pass on those recommendations.  Also if you are interested in coming to our open house, let us know and we will give you all the details when we pull them together.

Thanks, Steve