The puppies are getting so much bigger and more alert! Cleone's pups are becoming playful, as you can see in the video. Flossie's pups still spend most of their time sleeping, but I moved them out of the pool (today) because two of them climbed out this morning. They are all drinking homemade goat milk formula (raw goat milk, homemade yogurt or kefir, and egg yolk) in addition to nursing. They are all healthy and good weights. Enjoy the pictures and video! (Just scroll through the slideshow - sorry they are all piled together; life has just been busy, so I'm composing this post in a bit of a hurry. (Sorry, I only took video of Cleone's pups this week. I'll try to get one of Flossie's next week when they are more active.) Cleone's pups Flossie's pups
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Another week has already come and gone - the days are just flying by. I'll be combining the updates for both litters of puppies, since they are just 6 days apart. Cleone's puppies first: They have had some upset tummies this week and after talking to my vet and running a fecal exam (checking a sample with a microscope) we found the culprit - worms - puppies' most constant enemy. They are in all dogs and get passed to the pups through the mother's milk (sorry, it's gross, I know). Her heartworm/ general worm medication is usually enough to keep Cleone pretty clear of worms, but apparently she needed a little extra help with all the stress of having puppies, so I wormed her and now am worming the puppies. Many breeders worm puppies regularly every two weeks, beginning when they are 14 days old, but I prefer to do it on an as-needed basis. Now that I have a microscope and am learning how to use it effectively, that should work out much better. Worming on an as-needed basis instead of routinely helps prevent giving the pups more drugs than they need and helps slow down the worms' ability to resist the wormer - thus it's healthier for everybody. (While I'm on the subject - I'm also worming Flossie so that her pups don't have to go through this.) Cleone's puppies opened their eyes last week, but they still spend a lot of time sleeping - most of the time, in fact. Next week they should begin playing some, but so far, their lives are still very simple. Now, here are some pictures: Alfa (available) Wentz Bellatrix Echo Foxtrot (available) Fiona Juliett Koda Now for Flossie's puppies: Regulus (available) Aldebaran Antares Mira Polara (available) Rigel Sirius (available) That's it for now! I'll keep you all posted on their continued growth and progress. As always, feel free to contact me with any questions or comments (there is a comment form below!) or you can email me directly. Have a good week!
The puppies turned 1 week old on Monday, but there was no way I was going to be able to do an update then. Sunday afternoon through Monday noon was a bit wild around here... Flossie had her puppies Sunday afternoon and there was some doubt, at first, as to whether she was going to be a good mama. (It really worried me that she wasn't showing much interest in her puppies as they were born - I had to open the sacs and help them start breathing - but once she began to recover a little bit from having them, she bloomed into a great mother. She still has a few things to learn, but is doing very well so far.) Anyway, when Flossie was done delivering all 7 puppies, I went out to do the evening goat milking and other chores. To my horror, I found that my annoying little buck had somehow gotten into the feedshed and weathered the storm there. He had eaten a lot of grain and was already bloated - a potentially deadly situation. One of our milk cows was also acting like she would be calving within 12 hours or less... The next morning didn't improve. The goat died, in spite of my efforts, and the cow did have her calf (a big, handsome bull.) On the lighter side of things, I did finally get to be present when she calved. Our cows like to wait until we give up on them having a baby and go inside, then they drop the calf and we find it 5-10 minutes later. Flossie was not taking optimal care of her puppies yet and one of them was a bit constipated, so he was crying a lot and not wanting to nurse, but I wasn't sure what the problem was until later in the day, after I helped him out a little bit and he obviously felt better. By evening, when I did have time to do an update, I was too exhausted to even think about it! But, God is good and my family was very sensitive and forgiving to me, even when I was not handling the stress well. I'm thankful for all of them. So, now I have finally gotten around to taking the pictures, and also the short video below. Anna Frances (my almost five-year-old sister) was happy to help me. Enjoy! "Juliett" (We took pictures of Juliett first because she is AF's favorite puppy.) And here is Echo... This is Alfa. (He is still available.) Foxtrot (also still available.) "Delta" (She had been stretching in this first picture - but I was just a little too slow and missed most of the stretch and yawn. ) And here is Wentz. He's so cute! (Aren't they all?) :) And last, but not least, Koda. Their eyes should be opening sometime in the next couple days. I'll try to post again next Monday, but of course, any of you new owners are welcome to contact me in the meantime.
And while I'm at it, here are a couple pictures of Flossie's litter, now three days old. They're here! The much-anticipated litter has arrived - a couple days early. Everything went well with the birth, much better than last time, in fact, and this time I was there (instead of missing the birth.) I have been taking Cleone's and Flossie's temperatures fairly regularly so that I would have an idea of when they were going into labor. A dog's temp usually drops a couple degrees as they enter the first stage of labor and this is a good indicator that puppies will be born within 24 hours. Sure enough, Cleone's temp dropped on Sunday morning. At first I thought I was seeing things, since I didn't anticipate her having the pups for at least another day or two, but thermometers don't lie, so I locked her up in the new kennel. It wasn't (and still isn't) 100% complete, but one bay was finished enough for her to whelp and raise puppies. I made her a cozy bed, gave her food and water, and finished the rest of the morning chores before heading to church. We came home a little early and I immediately checked on her. No action. Well and good - I wasn't really expecting anything yet. I made a tent over her bed and she immediately liked it. So did Dickon... I also set up a chair in the kennel and took the "vet bag" out there so that everything would be ready. I had already taken out a bag of towels, old sheets, and blankets. I got up in the middle of the night to check on her again. Still no action. Monday morning, I got up at 4:30 and immediately checked again. Still no puppies, but she had been nesting and had piled up all the sheets in the middle of her bed. I decided to take her out and let her go potty, but determined to keep her on a leash, knowing she would prefer to have her pups under the house - a totally unacceptable place! I went inside, started the coffee, read my Bible for a little while, and then grabbed a leash and headed out again. This was about 5:05. Imagine my horror when I opened the kennel door and she was - missing! Apparently she had squeezed through the hog panel door and escaped. I have not yet put the smaller fence wire on the door, but I had no idea that she could squeeze through a hog panel, especially with as round and tight as her belly was. I immediately called her and headed for the access panel to go under the house. She did not come (as I expected, since she was ready to have puppies) and she was not under the house. I hunted and hunted, occasionally calling her and listening for the tell-tale jingle of her collar. Nothing. I crawled under the house (for the third time) determined to search every inch, since I was sure that was where she would go and figured I had just missed her in the darkness. I don't know if you have ever spent any time crawling around under mobile homes, but it is dark, spidery, and a bit confusing. There are lots of cement block columns and some ductwork that all block flashlight beams and provide ideal hiding places for dogs that don't want to be found, so I was pretty sure I had just missed her in the shadows. I was praying that I would find her as I crawled deeper in, but I didn't want to call her too loudly since I was right under my parents room and they were still asleep. (By this time it was about 5:35. Halfway down the length of the house, I heard the tags on her collar jingle. I called her softly, heard them jingle again, and kept on looking. A minute later I heard her trotting by me - outside! So now I was stuck under the house and she was outside, free to roam wherever! A second later though, she came in the access panel and stared in surprise at seeing me waiting for her. She came right to me and I immediately returned her to her kennel, then went inside for a much-needed cup of coffee - after blocking up the door so she couldn't squeeze out again! Around 7:15 I went out to check on her again. At the door, I heard a puppy crying. In I dashed and found a beautiful little black-and-white female (Delta.) I texted Mama and LilyAnn (one of my sisters.) Mama brought out my camera and another cup of coffee. She stayed for awhile and LilyAnn showed up a few minutes later. About half an hour later, the next puppy (Bravo) was born. I helped pull him out and assisted Cleone to clear his airways and clean him up, then positioned him for his first breakfast alongside Delta. Between puppies Cleone would stretch, pant, relax, lick her babies, or just enjoy getting attention. Sometimes she was even a little goofy... They followed one after the other, 20 - 60 minutes apart. Every pup was black and white. I was beginning to wonder if she would have a merle after all when finally the very last puppy, Echo, was born. I had been wanting to name one of the pups Echo, but I wanted to name one that looked most like Cleone or Duncan. As soon as I realized she was a merle female, I knew she was Echo. And, sorry folks, I'm keeping her - at least for now. We'll see if she stays here on a permanent basis.
Finally Cleone was finished birthing all the puppies. They were all nursing well and I decided to go inside for lunch, as it was now after 1 PM. My sister and her husband were leaving the next day, so the rest of the family had gone frisbee golfing and bowling with them, but of course, I couldn't leave Cleone at that point, so I just had to miss out. In a way I was thankful to have the opportunity to enjoy the new puppies and catch up on some computer work. It had been raining off and on all day, but as the evening closed in, it began to pour. We are in the sandhills region and don't get much rain, so it was a huge blessing to get such a good spring rain, but as it got darker, the rain got harder. By 9 PM we had gotten several inches within the last few hours. That was when Farrah (my sister who was leaving the next day) said, "Alayna, you don't think the kennel could flood, do you? It's in that low spot." "I checked the water earlier when I did the chores and it was several feet away," I said, "but I'll run out there and check again." It's a good thing I did: the water was just flowing into the kennel when I got there and it was almost knee deep just a few feet from the door. I piled three pups into each of my raincoat pockets, covered the last one up with the bedding in the pool, called Cleone, and took off for the barn, wading through our yard. I put the pool down on the barn floor, gave the pups to their mama, and ran back to the dog kennel to rescue the goat kid I had bedded down in the second bay. Ironically, I put her there to keep her dry, but now she was in danger of having to stand in several inches of water all night. I lost a shoe on the way over, but rescued the kid and bedded down Cleone and the puppies in the barn loft under a shelving unit- no way the water could reach them there! We almost never get more than 1/2" of rain in one afternoon and even when we do, rarely pools deep enough to reach the dog kennel area, which is raised a few inches above the low spot just in front of it, but of all nights to get 6+ inches of rain, it would happen to be the night after the puppies were born! About Cleone escaping... Well, all I can say about that is that's the kind of crazy thing dogs will do sometimes when they want to have their puppies somewhere else. I'm going to try to get smaller wire on that door today so we don't have a repeat. The good news is that everyone is all right. That's why it's important to closely monitor dogs close to whelping! Flossie is expecting a litter of puppies in just a few days and Duncan is the sire. Those of you who have read the other pages of this website will notice something immediately - Duncan is Flossie's sire too. Now, before you begin to get upset with me for being an irresponsible breeder and inbreeding my dogs, let me explain a couple things. All dog breeds are created by some form of inbreeding. What is a dog breed? It is a specific line of dogs that all share the same traits. (I know, my definition is a bit over-simplified, but you get the point.) To get this specific line of dogs, someone had to focus on those traits and lock them into the bloodlines. This means that related dogs - often very closely related (such as brother/ sister and father/ daughter) had to be bred. This is why all members of the breed are alike. It is also why many breeds have breed-specific diseases and ailments. Inbred dogs are not as hardy as outcrossed dogs - to a certain extent. Careful selection and a strong original gene pool drastically reduce the risks of inbreeding, especially in the first generation or two. Many breeders - and many good breeders - still use inbreeding/ linebreeding/ backbreeding to improve certain traits in a bloodline. Too much inbreeding also enhances bad traits - for instance, a show breeder might get that perfect head shape, but end up with lots of hip dysplasia. For this reason, I will not intentionally inbreed my dogs. (Though I will, to some extent, with our livestock.) Flossie was supposed to be bred to an unrelated Great Pyrenees on her next heat and she was locked up in my "secure" kennel during the day, and in a wire crate in the barn at night. That is, she was locked in the wire crate in the barn every night but one. Yes, one night we got home late from church and I thought, "Oh, dear, I have to lock Flossie up. She hates it, Duncan camps out next to the crate and wrecks the barn trying to get to her, and I have to lock him up and take her out on a leash at 4AM so she can go potty. It's after 10PM now. That pen/ kennel she's in is secure and she's almost out of heat anyway. If Duncan was going to bust in, he would have done it by now. I think I'll just leave her there tonight." The old kennel (where she was) had 8' high walls, a stout door, and wire buried about 12" under the entire floor. To get into it, Duncan would have to dig down a couple feet, then up through the wire. I figured if he was that desperate, he would have done it by now. (She had already been locked up for a week, and Cleone had been in there a few days before that.) You can guess the rest of the story. Sure enough, the next morning as I was peacefully writing in my office, after sleeping in until 5:30 or so, along came one of my little brothers to tell me that "Flossie and Duncan are trotting down the driveway." My heart sank. For the next 5 weeks or so, I monitored Flossie closely, trying to determine whether she was really pregnant. She definitely is. Her due date is next Wednesday, but I think she will whelp before that. Now that I have made full confession, let me tell the good news. Flossie is 50% Great Pyrenees. Duncan is from unrelated bloodlines (his mother is imported from Britain and his sire is American.) Neither is carrier or affected by any genetic disease, as far as I know. This means that their puppies should be just as healthy (healthier, in fact) as any purebred mutt puppies out there. They will have a double dose of Duncan's wonderful temperament and hopefully only half of Flossie's stubborn Great Pyrenees nature. They should make amazing farm and family dogs, and they will be much less expensive than my pedigreed Border collies. Though I would not have done this intentionally, and never plan to do it again, I am very interested to see how this litter turns out. I fully expect them to be great. All Flossie's puppies will be sold with a contract and raised just like our other BC pups. They will be good quality dogs that deserve just as much love, care, and attention as the other pups we raise, here at the SandSpur Ranch. Please let me know if you are interested in a puppy from this litter. I am happy to discuss any questions or concerns you might have about this breeding. These 3/4 Border Collie, 1/4 Great Pyrenees puppies will be $600 each. P.S. Duncan's escapade produced one immediate good result: I bit the bullet and spent the necessary money to build a good dog kennel. It is a HUGE upgrade to the old "just making-do" setup. While it is still under construction, I am super excited to now have a real kennel with multiple, good-sized bays for my dogs when necessary. They will continue to run free most of the time, but when I do need to lock them up, I'll be able to do it in a safe, secure environment now.
And if Duncan digs underneath and comes up through 4" of concrete flooring - well, I guess I'll say the litter was meant to be! |
AuthorMy name is Alayna Feldman. I have been greatly blessed and am thankful, first and foremost, to the Lord Jesus Christ, Who has saved me. I am also deeply thankful to my parents, who have raised me in a stable, safe, loving home and taught me about what is most important in life. Archives
February 2022
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