Preparing for Puppies

Amber is now at day 58..so puppies could be born anytime! Most likely they will make their arrival sometime between today and Wednesday. She is getting very big now and I can feel the pups kicking often when petting her belly; it's amazing.

So, as you might expect, we've had lots of things to get ready and I think we've now got almost everything sorted! Whelping kit is together, bedding washed, puppy room organised....this evening we're going to put the lino we bought yesterday into the whelping box, for now she's got old (but still very clean!) vet bed, towels and brown paper in there so she can dig/rip/mess with that for nesting and then once the puppies are here we'll change it to all new vet bed (in some fantastic colours :D )

Her belly is clipped, she had her herpes vaccine last week, she's being wormed with Panacur every day. I'm trying to get as much 'usual' stuff done as possible so I can totally focus on the puppies the whole time. It will mean the other three will miss out on what we normally do - so I've made some stuffed kongs to keep them occupied, they'll get kibble trails and my sisters will walk / play / train with them.

Not long now!

Beyond Excited

Last Friday we took Amber to the Vets for an ultrasound to see if she was pregnant, after breeding her to Ghandi at the end of January, using progesterone testing to determine the most suitable day of her season. I explained more in this post about our plans, although I know I haven't been good about keeping the blog updated on our journey!

The most AMAZING news is she is pregnant! :D
We saw four puppies. I am so happy and can hardly believe it!!
The litter is due March 25th, so about three weeks time.

She is now day 38 (scan was day 28) and is starting to look big. She is up to three meals a day and has had a 25% increase on her normal maintenance diet. I am keeping her fit by walking for around twenty minutes a day in the field, plus in the afternoons we go out in the garden for a while.

It's going to be busy here now; we've got the whelping box out but it needs a new coat of paint plus new pig rails. The puppy room (right by our kitchen so in the heart of the home, so to speak) is in the process of being cleared out and cleaned. I have lots of supplies to order too.

Some snowtime pictures of Amber from earlier this week <3

 

Results are back...

...from Cody's hip & elbow scoring. They actually came back way quicker than usual, I wasn't expecting them until the end of the month! His hips are graded 6/4 = 10 and elbows 1/0=1.

My thoughts are number one we will now not be breeding from him and that is definite. Whilst some might consider it, I am not happy to use a dog with an elbow score anything other than a total of zero. I had hoped he would have excellent elbows but on the positive side, one elbow is and the other is only a one. So he shouldn't be affected by it; or if he is it will be later in his life. The hips are bang on the median score, so average for the breed.

As we won't be breeding from him, I will also not bother trying to get him into showing, as he honestly doesn't enjoy the experience. Instead, we will do the things Cody loves; like Obedience. I will continue to do things the way we do - I'm not going to change his lifestyle because of the results as they still aren't particularly bad, just not perfect :)

Recent pic of the gorgeous boy <3