Tuesday, April 13, 2010

And on a sad note .............

This is Pastel, our first little pup.

Note that she looks tiny and rather skinny.

This is because we discovered on Sunday that she had a cleft palate and was not able to nurse. I had spent most of Friday night, Saturday, and Saturday night trying to get her to eat because I was noticing her lack of body fat that her siblings were getting and, sadly, was not.

I did not know dogs could get cleft palates but .... now I do.

We made the difficult to have her euthanized by our vet. The cleft was a very large one, starting from the end of her nose all the way to the back of her throat. There are surgeries that can repair these disabilities, but the time that is needed to tube feed for two months plus the next few years of rehab - I just didn't feel that I could devote the time needed to keep her alive. The vet also said that with this severe of a cleft, other problems tend to show up as the dog ages.

Sunday was a sad day for all of us. However, we now get to focus our attention on our five healthy roly poly puppies that are beautiful additions to our animal family.

See you in the next life Pastel, Little Girl.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Our New Babies

So, as if things weren't crazy enough, we decided to breed Abbi (our Aussie) this past February, hoping that she might take this time as she has missed for the past three times.

Why, do you ask, would I want more dogs (plus goats, chickens, pigeons, a cat and don't forget the kids) on top of everything else??

I have no good answer for you at the moment, but as soon as I take this hot poker from my eye, I'll think of a reason.

So Abbi started her labor Thursday morning around 9 ish. Breathing heavy, acting strange. I stayed with her the entire day, because it was me she was following and since I've delivered puppies before (Nicole, my lovely poodle), I had a bit .... nitnoy ... experience in whelping.

Finally, around 7 pm (yes, 10 hours later) she finally started pushing and then at 8:15, she pushed out her first baby.

Robee, being located in a strategic position with the video camera (movies to be shown at the next family dinner), had his first glimpse of birth ............ and didn't like it AT ALL. "Hey! Why is there water squirting out of her butt?" and then "HEY! What's that huge thing coming out of her butt??" and the best part "uh ... why is she *gulp* eating that?"

So, yeah. Whelping for Robee was a huge hit.

Caroline, a friend of Felix's, was lucky enough to be here for it because normally she comes to TaeKwonDo with us but with the labor, that was out. So she got to watch all the puppies be born.


Little Blue Merle Girl #1 (the one in the middle of the worm pile) was first out. Great name, eh? Too busy cleaning them off to name them.



This is Black Girl #4. You can assume she was fourth. She is also our only black one.


Blue Merle Boy #2 (aka Fat Tony). He seemed enormous coming after Little Girl since she was so tiny.


The whole tired family (and I would have crawled in there too if there was room) at the end of the night .... actually she finished her last one at 12:15 am Friday morning. She had six beautiful puppies, equal sexes, five merles and one black. I was hoping for a tri (sire is and so is her dad) but you get what you get and you don't throw a fit.

So we're excited to start an even more exciting adventure with puppies at our house.
I have more pics but am in the middle of airing out my house that I almost burnt down forgetting I had a chicken boiling on the stove.