I want to let you all know that we have bred Meggie with Seeker. We have been tracking Meggie's progesterone levels. Monday a week ago she was at .02 and Saturday she was at 1.3. She ovulates when her progesterone level reaches 5.
We also watch her behavior. Yesterday she was crying to be around our male puppy who is not mature, but is an intact male. She followed him around the house and was "flagging" him (raising her tail and waving her rear end in his face) and trying to entice him into some romance. I knew it was time to bring our mature male, Seeker, into the dance. I picked Seeker up today from his guardian home and brought him home. Meggie was very interested and the two had a "tie" almost immediately. A tie is when the two have a successful breeding. This tie was very peaceful and both dogs were equally interested in each other. This was a great breeding.
We will follow up with another progesterone test and then follow up breedings every couple of days. The importance of the progesterone test is to tell us that Meggie has indeed crossed the "5.0" barrier so we know that she has indeed ovulated. Once we know when she ovulated we can gauge when the puppies will be born. We are looking forward to this litter. One puppy will become a breeder in North Carolina, and one will be a breeder in Holland. Four others will be pets in other parts of the country.
Scarlett continues to have an uneventful pregnancy. We have he ultrasound to confirm pregnancy and number of puppies. That test will be run on May 29th. Once we get the results we will post that on our web page blog and will also contact all those who have put down deposits on the puppies. It is going to be about four weeks later that we have the puppies born. Exciting days ahead!!
We have moved Juliet's puppies down to the kitchen where they get a lot of attention. They love it! We have set up a pen for them with a crate (the door is always open and it is their favorite place to relax) and a special tray with artificial grass where they potty. It is amazing that even at four weeks they are choosing to go to the "grass" to potty. Boy do they potty! We have to clean out the reservoir twice a day.
The puppies are also moving to eating from a bowl and are going to start on "mush" this week. We add ground kibble to goats milk and feed the puppies from a large, shallow bowl. It is hilarious to watch them figure out how to lap up the food and to see them experience new taste sensations. These puppies are motivated and learn very quickly that they can have full tummies when they go to the bowl. It is providing a break for Juliet who has been nursing her puppies from their birth. She is relieved to see the puppies feeding and is enjoying more time playing with them and less time feeding them.
We are also introducing the puppies to new experiences and new people. Soon we will be taking them on car rides to the bank and other places where we can introduce them safely to a variety of people. This helps them to be well socialized when they get to their new families.
This litter is very social already and loves people. As I write this blog I am sitting next to the pen and the puppies are whining to get out and have me sit with them. They prefer to play over eating.
I think you will enjoy the videos I am taking and trying to edit so that I can put them on You Tube. I should have them up within the week. Pester me about them if you do not see them soon.
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.
