Getting bigger by the day!

The puppies are 4 weeks old today! They are getting very active and playful now. Yesterday we moved them from the whelping box into a bigger puppy playpen, which has bed (including a crate), play and toilet areas. I think they are liking this new arrangement, and it gives them lots more space. They now have a shallow water dish; Dizzy went over to investigate and gave himself a sunrise when he went to sniff it and got covered in water! Sunshine & Chatterbox just go for a paddle ;)

It's amazing how much they've changed since they were born. They are now walking around and hardly toppling over at all. They have (sharp) teeth, which they like to chew everything with! They are barking and have great fun with their toys. They are interacting more with us and come over for cuddles.

They have now entered the Critical Socialization Period, a time which shapes the puppies futures. Therefore we are introducing them to all sorts of different people, dogs, animals, sights, sounds, surfaces, experiences...and making it all really positive.

A few of my favourite cute pictures from the last few days (we will try to do individual four week old pictures tomorrow)

Amber & Gandhi's puppies are here!

We have two girls and one boy <3

Mr Dizzy, Little Miss Sunshine and Little Miss Chatterbox

25.03.15

Wow, what a maniac two weeks! So it all started off on Monday 23rd at 5 am when Amber began nesting, we knew it wouldn't be long. As well as digging/scratching/ripping her bed and the nesting box she had several massive holes in the garden. Then on Wednesday it all moved up a gear. Her waters went at twelve thirty so we knew the puppies were on their way. After having spent a few hours not doing much we we're trying to make a decision about what to do and then we noticed green discharge..bad sign. So we went to the vets for an emergency c-section. There had indeed been a puppy in distress who wouldn't have made it had we waited much longer. We were there when they were born, the first boy squeaked almost straight away; the girls took a little longer - it's always so wonderful to hear! There were two vets and three nurses there, I'm really glad we got there before they went home as it is safer with more staff. We then brought them home almost straight after, so Amber was quite sleepy and was lifted into the whelping box. All puppies took a few minutes to start feeding but once they did they were flying it. Birth weights, in birth order; Mr Dizzy 560g, Little Miss Sunshine 540g and Little Miss Chatterbox, 560g. We stayed up the first night watching them, by the next morning we were very tired, but of course it was more than worth it!

Since then puppies have been busy feeding, sleeping, growing and being cute :D The vet called out at day three to do dewclaws and give everyone a quick check over. For the first few days Amber didn't leave them at all, as you would expect, so trips outside for toilet breaks entailed putting the pups into a box (with a pre-warmed heat pad and a cosy blanket). Now she goes in to spend time with them but it happy to spend short periods away as long as she is around the house. I will likely start taking her for quick walks in the field tomorrow, once her stitches are out.

Weights this morning are 1780, 1800 & 1960g so they have tripled their birth weights, plus some more! Eyes are nearly totally open, they are starting to try and walk (even if they often end up toppling over) and they are beginning to interact more.

Love them <3

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

Hip & Elbow Scoring

One of the health testing requirements for Bernese is hip and elbow scoring. Cody is now 18 months old, which is actually commonly agreed to be the upper 'ideal' age range to complete these; although I will add they can indeed be carried out at any time once the dog is over a year old. So we took Cody in today at the vets for both his hip and elbow x-rays, which will be sent to the BVA (British Veterinary Association) for scoring, this is done based on the degree of dysplasia of the joint - the top possible score is 53:53 so 106 - the lower the score, the better.

Every breed has an 'mean' score (whereby you mix all the results of all the dogs together), which gives you an 'average' score which isn't actually the score of the 'average' dog, if that makes any sense?! Let me explain a bit more - to create that number, you are going to have some dogs with very high scores, which is going to skew the picture, and make you think the hip status in the breed is worse than it really is. For example, the mean score for Bernese is 15. Therefore, someone might think that breeding from a dog with a score of anything under that would be perfectly acceptable - and until recently, the BVA's recommendation actually followed this. However, it has now been adjusted to 'well under' the BMS instead.

They are now also publishing the 'median' scores, which means there are an equal number of both lower and higher scores, so what the dog in the middle of the populations hip score is. Instead of using the BMS, you are actually better to use the median scores to determine your 'cut off' point for breeding dogs - they need to be under the median score (for Bernese, 10) - unless in the case of an otherwise exceptional dog (and even then it should be very carefully considered). 

Elbows are quite different in that you only have four possible results, 0-4 (or a mix of those, such as 1/0 which would make a total score of 1). Again, you are hoping for the lower score the better and advice is to only breed from dogs which score 0/0 (occasionally, like with the hips, you could consider a score of 1 but it is an exception to the rule).

Anyhow, Cody got on just fine today, I had planned carefully how I wanted things to go - we arrived, took him in for his pre-med and then waited back in the car until he was literally ready to go straight in; we left him after they had injected anaesthetic and he was totally zonked. Then afterwards when he had sorta woken up (basically only opened his eyes, although when we walked in he tried to get up to see us, bless him!) we put him in our car until he was okay to go home. He's been sleeping for the afternoon and ate his dinner with great enthusiasm! 

Naturally, I am hoping Cody will come back with amazing scores...We looked at his x-rays with the vet; the elbows look fine and the hips look okay too, although one seems to be noticeably better than the other so I would expect the scores to reflect that. Now we've just got to wait 4-6 weeks to find out!