Our new babies

So a few hours after the last post, puppies started arriving. The first snuck in right around 1o:30am. I was walking past Sadie's, AKA Mercedes, crate and saw a tiny dark chocolate body peaceful as can be drinking from her mom. I did a double take as I was already past the open side of the crate before I even realize what I had seen. Our Sadie was being sneaky. I open up the door and pick up the baby to do a flip over and see what we got. Right under her tail was her little heart shape indicator of her sex. A beautiful chocolate girl, just what I was telling Sadie for the last nine weeks I wanted from her. Every night I gave Sadie a good pet and whisper in her ear, chocolate girls, all chocolate girls. So we progress with the day and by noon we have another two girls, both shiny and black. Each one another surprise. Sadie was being sneaky, still. Now hours go by and we wait for the next one. Normally we get puppies about 40 to 60 minutes apart. Sadie is doing fine, taking care of the girls making sure they are clean and eating. About 4pm a black boy arrives, again a surprise. Sadie IS being sneaky. I mean come on, four puppies and not one do I see arrive into this world and take it's first breath. Five pm rolls around and another black boy. Again with the sneakiness. Seven pm our first chocolate boy shows up with his little brown/pink nose sniffing for his food. What is it with Sadie the Queen of Sneaktom? Can't she share? A couple of hours go by and I wonder if she is done and so I feel her belly and I can feel a puppy in her belly close to her ribs and know that she has at least one more in there. At 9:30pm I do a head count and surprise a second chocolate boy shows up in the line up at Sadie's belly. He has a blaze on his front chest. He was pretty dry and I assume he arrived at 9pm. Sadie, COME ON AlREADY! So now I am determined to see something. I pace back and forth check on the brood. Every little noise and I'm up to peer in and every time Queen Sadie is just calmly looking back at me. Sometimes she is panting, I swear she's laughing. Hours go by nothing. I check her belly and I think I'm pretty sure there's another in there. About 1am, I convince Sadie to leave her crate for the first time for a trip outside to potty. She doesn't want to leave her babies, but I assure her that I'm shutting the door and promise that no one will bother them. A quick in and out and a big drink of water and Sadie is waiting at her crate to get back in. I change the bedding and check the babies and Sadie jumps back in to verify her babies are all still there. She eats in her crate cause she was pretty sure she was needed back at her babies side. I settle everyone down for the night and do a quick clean up in the hallwall (grossness, I'll spare you the details). I lay down wondering if she will deliver the finally puppy that I'm sure is there. That Sneaky Girl! I wake up in the morning and check on Sadie and everything looks the same as it did when I fell asleep. I invite Sadie out again and change the bedding under the pups and do a head count to make sure no one has wondered off into the crumpled up bedding. There were eight, I do a quick flip of pups to check their under carriage and find the newbie. A third black girl. I can't believe I missed every single birth, and to add insult to injury, 1, only 1 chocolate girl. That sneaky Sadie!

Waiting Games

So we are still waiting for puppies, gee I love this waiting game. I keep sneaking over a peeking at her to see what she is doing and all I see is her big brown eyes looking back at me. She does have mucous string hanging from her whenever she goes outside for potty. I used to be able to watch the moms when they were in my room, but now since I opened up my room into the next room and created a larger area for the dogs, I can’t watch what’s going on anymore. There’s a wall in my way. I can see a small portion of Sadie’s crate so I know when she moves around. I really should just go to bed and get some sleep. Then the puppies will come. Earlier I was holding my grandson, Cubby, in my arm and feeding him a bottle. Cubby fell asleep and let loose of the nipple and smiled. What do babies smile about in their sleep? There are not very many better things in this life to do than hold a sleeping baby or puppy; it forces you to be calm, peaceful and relaxed. Else you would wake the little one up. My two grandsons wake up in different ways. Cubby mostly wakes up grinning at the world or crying for something. Bear wakes up and lies in his bed for a while, I think he wakes up trying to figure out how the world around him is doing. I watch him most mornings do this. He moves around until he is face up, then opens he eyes and stares at the ceiling. He will pretty much stay this way until he hears me move in my bed. Then he just turns his head without moving his body and looks at me. At this point, I smile at him and he smiles back. Then I do a come on jerk with my head and up he pops and climbs out of bed. Today during nap time I trimmed Hiedi and Emma to get them ready for giving birth and nursing puppies. It’s a little early for Emma and I will do it again in a couple weeks, but she needed it done. She has a lot more hair on her body than my other girls, must get that from her dad, and needs to be trimmed regularly to keep her hind end clean. I could feel at least one puppy in Hiedi’s belly. If it wasn’t for Hiedi’s nipples getting enlarged, I wouldn’t think that she was pregnant. She’s not showing very much. I could feel an end in her belly; I can’t tell if it’s a head or bottom so I’m calling it an end. Dogs carry their babies up high under their rib cage until about the sixth or seventh week, when the pups drop down into the belly. Sometimes the puppies stay high and you only notice a little thickening. Last year a dog we know had ten puppies and you would have never guessed to look at her that she was expecting. Hiedi is due in eight days, I guess we will find out then what’s in her belly.

Eve before Puppies

Today I was fortunate enough to get off work early a couple hours, bosses can be nice Christmas Eve. Tomorrow is the day that Sadie, aka Sweet Blessings Mercedes Style, is due to bless us with puppies again. Last time she had puppies, she had them a day early, so we'll see if she does that again. This morning, Wes prepared her bed for her. She usually resides in the first crate she can get to in the dog room. But being on the floor makes for hard times on my knees and back when taking care of puppies. So Wes transferred her to the upper crate. This means keeping the doors on the lower crates closed to keep Sadie from automatically entering the lower one and having to convince her that she belongs in the upper bunk. We treat her when she's in the one we want her to be in. So we have lined her crate with double layer of cloth pads that we will change as needed while Sadie gives birth. Then wait. I wonder if we will be surprised by a light coated puppy. I'll let you know

Why we do what we do.

I had someone ask us last spring why we breed dogs? There are really many reasons, but first let me say that I think it is always better to be able to provide a home or a homeless pet than to add to pet over population. I know that that statement seems at odds with what we do with our dogs. First of all there is a need for dogs that are low shedding or non shedding. I am very allergic to cats and dogs and can't even just walk into a shelter to visit the dogs there without risking serve allergic reactions and asthma attacks. That's pretty sad for someone who loves dogs as much as I do and be face with the fact that having a canine companion was out of the question. The human population has become so ingrained with canines that it seems like most people have at least on or two. If I count the 16 houses on my small street, only 2 of them are dogless. The two without are occupied by families who are new to our country. When I take the dogs for walks, we stir up the dogs in the neighborhood as we walk down the street (need dog tag silencers)and just about hear them at every house. We do what we do to help those individuals and families out there that otherwise would not be able to have a pet with fur. We do what we do by carefully selecting and breeding dogs that will have the highest chances of being non shedding, which is the most desirable. We do what we do for the smiles we see, the joyful voices we hear and the heartfelt hugs we receive. We do what we do because it gives us propose from day to day, tail wag to dog bark and litter to litter. We do what we do because we have great plans for someday and it's good for us to have plans for the future. Someday is for bigger yards for longer throws of tennis balls. We don't do what we do for money, there isn't profit in breeding for small breeders. Most of the money is reinvested back into the dogs for feeding, health care, grooming supplies and cleaning supplies. The list could go on and on.We do what we do for love of dogs.

Moms To Be

Today is Sunday and being the last weekend before the next litter of puppies are due, I do mom prep. Our Standard Poodle mom, Mercedes is due next Friday on Christmas Day. Basically I do a hygiene trim. I search out and find all ten of the puppy feeding stations on mom's very big belly. I wanna make it easy for the babies to find food ad mist all that curly hair. I also trim the business end, aka where the babies come out. I also like to keep Mercedes nose and ears trimmed close as part of her "look" and trimmed her feet. While I work on her belly, I can feel babies moving around and poking out under my hands. Takes me about an hour with my scissors. Then Mercedes gets a nice warm bath, lavender is the scent of the day. Mecedes lays down in the tub, a little unusual for her but hey, she is pregnant. Then after the dry off and color put back on, she gets her nails trimmed. She is the easiest of our dogs to groom. Everyone else complains the whole time and pulls away this way or that and I usually end up all covered with hair if I'm trimming it or soaking wet if I'm bathing it.

Things I do when it's nap time.

So things I like to do when it's nap time around here. Well top on my list is to nap myself. But, since the littles, as I like to call the pair of them, moved into our home almost three months ago. I like to take advantage to the quiet time to get something accomplished. So today I put the littles down for their naps and let the dogs out into the backyard for play and feeding time. I started placing the pavers that my fav purchased and toted home for me. You know he bought out the store? 137 12X12 pavers was all that was available in the whole Home Depot. Isn't he just the best? That's my fav for you. So anyways, I got out my trusty, rusty shovel and started leveling out the area where I planned to start. I figured that since I didn't have enough to cover all of the mud, I would start at the area closest to the back door and work my way out from there. I really had a late start, about 2:30pm. So my daylight started to dim rather quickly and I ended up having to turn on the backyard lights. But, amazingly so I got about 40 of the pavers placed before I called it quits. I am planning on leaving to 3'X3' planters for two trees that I am hoping to plant before spring. (I'll take pictures of it later). One thing really nice is that I already have a dip system installed in the area that I can tap into to water my future trees. I'm hoping it will be nice, but mostly clean. We moved my cement bench onto the pavers. It needed to be moved to place the pavers, just the seat portion weighs a couple hundred pounds. It's not very steady right now, but should settle in place in time. If not I will reset it and maybe set it with cement epoxy since I don't have plans to move it again. It is located in the middle of where I plan to plant my trees. Now my husband and are have been discussing the type of tree to plant there. He mentioned a pair of curly willows, which in nice because they grow real fast and love areas where the ground is really wet. But me, I'm wanting maples, for nice shade in the summer for whoever sits on the bench and beautiful fall color. Maybe I'm get some dwarf burning bushes to plant at the base of the trees, for a super bright red in the fall. I sent out emails today to families who have puppies turning a year old in a few days, for comments and photos to post on my website. I think the letters have resulted in quite an increase in hits on my website today and I've received comments and 39 photos back from one couple. Hoping tomorrow I get more. Both our sons leave tomorrow, the older, back on the road for three weeks and the younger to his next Army duty station. Sure going to miss them being around. Good thing we have the littles to keep us occupied.

Sunshine Day

Today is the day after Thanksgiving Day and it's sunny! That's a good thing. It has been raining so much the last couple of weeks that the dogs haven't wanted to spend much time outside. Not only that, my backyard has turned into some kind of mud pit. Any area that doesn't have cement or pavers has now become slimy, stinky mud. Our soil is very heavy clay that doesn't drain, so when it rains, the water stays on the surface. The worse part of this is that the dogs walk, run thru this mud and churn it up. If they poop in the mud, it gets added to the mixture. Gross I know. Solutions to the problem: Sod? No, Sod or replanting grass won't work since well one thing, it won't grow this time of year and it would just get trampled back down and into mud again. Gravel? No, gravel is gritty and comes into the home on the dogs feet and it will after time get absorbed back in to the ground and have to be reapplied every year or so. Pavers? Yes! Pavers won't do what the other options will. They won't add to the mud problems and they will allow rain water to pass thru to the ground underneath. We already do have a good portion of the yard covered with pavers. But the dogs don't care if they step on pavers or mud. Strange I know. You'd think that they would care to keep their paws all nice and clean. So great news! My son, my Fav, is going to help me get more pavers to finish. Isn't that wonderful? Well I'm excited because once we get the project done, the dogs can be bathed, the floors mopped, walls washed off, and the slider window cleaned from muddy paw prints. Right now the slider looks like they have been finger painting and being short I have a hard time peering thru the art work to check on the dogs outside. So today I'm going to take advantage of the sun pouring done from the blue sky and do some poop clean up and a little bit of straightening up. Hope that where ever you are, you have a sunny day too and get to enjoy it, even if you are just picking up after two or four legged beings.

We are expecting!

So once again the anticipation of new puppies have entered our minds. We are excitedly awaiting three, yes three, litters of puppies. Not only that, we are finally going to see what having gone thru the trouble of finding, purchasing and raising a new stud will produce for our breeding program. Also, Emma is going to be a mom for the first time.

The first litter is expected to arrive on Christmas Day, these are from our lovely standard poodle mom Mercedes. These are going to be a surprise. Mercedes bred with both of our studs, Fritz and Dutch. Though to be honest I am only expecting another litter of black and chocolate puppies.

The second litter is due to arrive on the fourth day of the new year. This is Hiedi's second litter and she has been bred to Dutch. Hiedi is cream and Dutch is Carmel. Sounds sweet doesn't it? Anyways we really are hoping that the mix between these two will give us some lighter color puppies for a change. Which was the whole reason for getting Dutch.

The third litter is due to arrive January 15th. Emma is medium sized and chocolate, bred with Dutch we should be seeing mostly chocolate puppies. We are hoping for a true red. According to breed standards; reds are very close in tone to chocolate but they have to have a black nose. Otherwise they will be considered chocolate.

Do we have worries? Well we have the usual birth and delivery worries. We will also be concentrating most worrying on producing fat healthy puppies. A lot of care and research will be spent on all these puppies. Then the hope that Emma is a good mom and doesn't have a puppy that is too big for her to pass.

Lazy Day

Today was a lazy day for us around here. This morning is just was pour down rain, the sky was dark and in the middle of the day I felt the need to have the lights on inside. So we stayed inside and watched movies on TV. At one point I peered out the window to watch the water flow down the street. The gutters on both sides were full and the corner one house down from us was flooded completely across the road. Even the dogs felt the need to sleep away the day. They went out for their potty breaks but ate inside. They did get a good brushing today, which some like more than others. Our black poodle male Fritz has been sniffing more than usual the tail end of our female poodle Mercedes for the last couple days. So while it was her turn for brushing, I checked her out and found her to be in heat. Just at the beginning of the heat, a little swollen and a little blood. The heat cycle lasts for close to a month. During the first week the female can be moody and will nip at any male sniffing her. Around the 10th day, she becomes more accepting to the males advances and playful displays. When she decides she is ready for mating her tail moves to the side to allow access. The female won't mate unless she wants to and is ready. A few days after the pair is tied or stuck together, she goes back out of heat if the mating was successful. The pregnant mom carries her puppies high up in her ribs until about the sixth week, then they move or drop down where there's more room for them to grow. Waiting for the mom to start showing seems to take forever, then one day you look at her laying on her side and see that she is a little rounder in the belly. A couple days later she is suddenly oh my gosh huge. So anyways, another reason why this seems like a lazy day around here is that our Grandsons are at their mom's for the weekend. About three months ago our oldest son moved back home. He attended truck driving school and is now working driving long haul. How we ended up with the boys is a long story, another posting perhaps. Short story is that the mother of his boys is unable to care for them much less herself. My son is now financially able to care for them, but given the nature of his job, we do. Not that we mind being parents again, it's actually a lot more fun than the first time around. Less stress. The older one is 18 months, the younger 4 months. We are teaching the older one how to correctly interact with the dogs, he feeds them treats so he is use to feeling their teeth. They have gentle mouths being bred originally to retrieve birds without damaging the birds. The dogs are learning to respect the boy's space, he face is conveniently at the same level as their faces. It's a work in progress and he gets a lot of kisses.

Time for Fall and a visit to the Dog Park.

Today is October 3rd, 2009, it seems like Fall is truly here. The nights are colder and the rain has moved in giving us showers every third day or so. Today was a great day. After feeding the dogs and letting them potty. I loaded them all up and drove to the nearest dog park. We love the dog park, everyone was so excited. Too excited, I was so glad that there were no cars in the parking area when I came over the last rise. Someday I'm sure that they will pull me to the ground in their eagerness to get in the park and get busy. So we made it in just fine and once I opened the second gate they were off. They all start running around like the crazy fools I know them to be. I quickly grab a plastic shopping bag stuffed with more bags from the information station and start walking. I wanted to walk the perimeter today a couple of times to see if it helped work out some soreness that I've had for a couple of days. The dogs kind of stay with me. They run out a distance and then run back to me. We get about half way around the 7 acre park and a couple comes to the gate with two dogs. All my dogs take off for the gate and start barking at the newcomers, I'm too far away to do much good. The couple takes their dogs into the small dogs area. Then the dogs run back and forth the length of the fences barking for a while, which wears everyone out a bit. Then they come into the bigger side and start walking around. I stay behind with my dogs to give them a bit of space between us. They get to an area were the land dips down and I can no longer see them. Dutch and Fritz follow them and disappear from my view also. I start walking again and call everyone back to me. The couple run toward the area where the dogs are hiding from my view, I don't heard anything either. My dogs return to me and when I next see the other dogs again they are walking on leashes and soon leave the park. So I didn't get a chance to find out if something had happened. I keep walking around with the dogs. I wish I had check the dog park inventory in my car's trunk before leaving home. I used to be more prepared for the park. The ball chuck-it was missing. I am a pitiful ball thrower, I mean seriously, I'm lucky if it goes 20 feet away. If my dogs could roll their eyes, I'm sure they would every time I throw the ball. So anyways, all we have for activities are walking or sitting at the bench while the dogs vie for shade under the bench. So we walk since that was the plan anyways. So I'm halfway around again and other dog enters the park. This time it is this cute little pit bull. She looks so cute because it looks like someone took a white dog and dipped her in black paint while holding her by her head. So that went okay with her, the dogs were pretty much ran out by then. Another pair of dogs came in and the greeting was nice also. They were big furry beasties. So after that I didn't feel too bad about what happened with the first two dogs, if something did happen. So after an hour and a half we left the park and returned home for dog nap time. I was hoping them to be nicely worn out because I was planning on painting the walls and floor in the dog's room and my adjoining bedroom. I needed them to be happy to sleep while I got this project done. So now hours later I'm enjoying a nice freshly painted room. By the way, as a side note, yes I did say paint my floors. I pulled up the carpet a while back and in the meantime until I can install laminate flooring I'm enjoying having colorful floors. It actually worked out pretty good, I paint the floor with a hi-gloss enamel paint so clean up is easy. One project done, a million and two left. Now that the weather is cooling off my projects move inside. Next on the list is removing the tile floor in the kitchen and installing laminate flooring. It will be nice to have that done. It is a weird thing to explain to people who come to look at my puppies why I'm missing tile on the floor. Though I will confess to installing the tile incorrectly in the first place.

The count down has begun

So I know what your thinking. We could hardly wait for puppies to arrive just 8 short weeks ago. But by next Monday we are talking about a puppyless household. It was been 9 months of puppies so a break has been well looked forward to in our house. We love the puppies of course. It is so wonderful to watch every puppies first everything. They come into the world wet and needy and it's our job to much sure that they have everything that they need. The first week we watch them constantly, making sure each and every one of the little darlings are getting enough feeding time, don't get lost in the bedding or laid on by mom. Mom needs almost constant feeding so she can in return constantly feed her babies. By the end of the second week, we see blue tinted eyes starting to peek open. Third week finds the babies trying out their wobbly legs. The fourth week they are interacting with one another and us. Their bellies are nice and healthy round in shape, their coat start showing off their trade mark curls. The fifth week they get their first shot, though most don't even notice it happening. They are too excited because they are getting some extra cuddling. By now most have developed definable personalities, we know who's outgoing, who's calm, who likes to be held and who likes to trot around the living room with a little soft toy in his mouth. Week six they will be dewormed for the third time, they spend most of their awake time testing their wrestling moves and using their voices. Weeks 7 and 8 they are hardly ever nursing on mom and thoroughly enjoying feeding time. At the end of 8 weeks, they get their final deworming and shot from us, we say good bye and watch them get loaded into various vehicles by happily smiling families one by one. Puppy equipment is stowed away. The next few days after, we marvel at all the extra time we now have and miss having the puppies around the house. Time to do all things that have been waiting for more time in which to do them. More time spent walking the dogs, we return to our beloved dog park once again. We wait once again for puppies.

Fritz and Lulu

Our black standard poodle Fritz got to go visit Lulu tonight. Lulu is a F1b (which is a the offspring of a 50/50 labradoodle bred back to a poodle) labradoodle. Lulu is cream with apricot markings and looks alot like our Gretchen, though I think that her coat is better, and weighs only 40 pounds and is about 18 inches from the floor to the top of her back. I met Lulu's family earlier this summer at the local feed store in town and we struck up a conversation about poodles and labradoodles and Amy talked about how they hadn't fixed their girl and were considering breeding her. Handsome boy Fritz was with us and Amy really liked how Fritz looked and behaved. So I handed Amy one of my business cards and told her to give it some serious thought and read up about online. We emailed back in forth a few times and at the end of August Lulu went into heat. I calculated the best time for breeding and made up a stud service contract. The first night Lulu just wasn't ready. They did alot of flirting and several attempts, but after two hours they were wore out and no longer interested. Not a big deal, after all if Lulu isn't ready she wouldn't allow breeding to happen. So Fritz and I returned two days later and after a little more play and flirtation, they got stuck. Okay, I say stuck because they are really stuck. Officially it's called a "tie". Amy and her husband asked how long will they be stuck and I told them anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes, sometimes 40. So we visit and chat about dogs and puppies and getting prepared for puppies and time goes by and by and by. They stayed stuck for more then a hour and a half! A record for us. I check the calender and tell them we can expect puppies November 2nd. We, Fritz and I will return tomorrow to breed again. Breeding twice should insure a successful breeding. I'll post as Lulu progresses. Right now I am not expecting any of our girls to go into heat for a while. I am also mentoring Amy and will be present at the birth and available to answer any question that the family thinks up. Amy and her husband have four young kids and they are home schooled. This is going to give them lots of information that the kids can use as learning tools.

Continue where I left off yesterday

So Sunday I get a call from someone who has a deposit on a puppy, they want to come see her. All my puppy parents are encouraged to come visit their puppy anytime they wish so they can see their puppy grow and bond with their little fluff ball. Then someone else want to come again to look at the puppies a second time. I wash and dry six puppies. Then let puppies run around on the living room floor during the quiet time while we wait for people to show. This means watching them to see if they poo so it can be cleaned up right away. The puppies won't poo now when company's here. People come, people go. People come and put a deposit down on the puppy they think is most special to them, it is a good match. People go. I mix more de-wormer for adult dogs and puppies. Feed dogs and puppies. Puppies sleep, dogs sleep. I now have enough money to buy flea treatment for adult dogs. It's late summer, fleas are very active this time of year, the rest of the year we don't see them on our dogs. So I go buy flea treatment, $100. Stop by my parents to install a ceiling fan in my dad's "man cave" It looks very nice, my dad is very happy. I stay for dinner and watch a movie. I return home and treat five dogs for fleas, the sixth I can't treat for she is nursing and I can't risk puppies ingesting the pesticide. Crate the dogs so they can lick the treatment off each other's back. Check email, email is working. I have a new inquiring about our babies. Reply to email. End of weekend. Another worming treatment tomorrow.

Puppy breeder chores.

Okay so a typical weekend day at my home involves dogs and the care of dogs. I wake up at the same time I do during the week because Dutch thinks he is on a schedule and has to go outside at the same time everyday. So he gently wakes me up Saturday morning just like most morning with a little bark every few minutes until I finally sit up. So I get them all up and take them out to potty, then I take the poodles out for a 3 mile walk. Today is dewormerday, so I mix up dewormer med with canned dog food. That's the only way I can get them to eat it without spilling it. I get the liquid dewormed by the quart, it cost's 130.00. I will use up all of it, because it is a three day treatment. Back outside goes the dogs. We have a pond in our backyard where a couple of turtles lived and some gold fish. Hiedi and Emma hop in and get soaking wet with pond water. This being Saturday and there's a possibility that someone may want to come see the puppies, I wash Hiedi and Emma. Then I crate them to dry. I brush Dutch, Sadie and Fritz. Back outside for potty. Everyone back in and feed Gretchen her mommy meal again. I check my email. Nothing, :( It's now 1pm. I start trimming Fritz. My clippers aren't working right, I have to scissor trim him. 3pm brush hair off Fritz and let him go out for potty. Give Fritz a bath to wash off the hair the brush didn't get. Let dogs out to potty. Give Emma a hair cut, good thing she is small. Give Emma her second bath of the day. Check email, nothing. Thing must be broken. Clean ears and puck out ear hair. Poodles need the hair pucked out to prevent infection. Time for potty again. Prepare puppy health records for 10 puppies, cost .22 cents per record. Prepare and give puppies their first vaccination, cost 3.45 per shot plus .12 per needle. Potty again. Check email, have email. Someone wants to return and see the puppy she fell in love with. Respond to email. Eat my first meal of the day. Talk to sister and fellow breeder via email than on the phone. Watch puppies play in their pen. Think about what I have to accomplish tomorrow.

Sadness

Today was a sad day for us. We lost a puppy, a small boy. He was just too frail and even with the extra care he just never really gained weight like a puppy should. So tonight we care for the puppies and hold them just a little bit longer and tell them what little cutie pies they are. Look into their blue tinged trusting eyes and tell them that everything is okay and that they will soon grow up and be adopted by a loving family.
Goodbye Johnson.

Yard Work

Last weekend we did yard work. Besides the usual poo patrol. We finished covering over the neighbor's cheaply made fence with real fencing, and therefore blocking the view another foot and a half higher. Then we did a bunch of weeding and got some more pavers for pathways. In the winter it rains so much that our back yard turns muddy and then our dogs get all muddy too. Now I just need to find some kind of plants that can with stand dogs running over them.

For my son.

My younger son, J, left last Monday for Army boot camp.So I haven't felt very much like posting any thing new since. I heard from him today when he called to tell me that he is doing okay. After five days, he is still in processing and hasn't been assigned a platoon yet. It was so nice to hear from him, he's my baby you know. My 18 year old baby. His goal is Ranger training, which will add a few weeks to his boot camp training. So we don't expect to see him until Thanksgiving time. J is so smart and just a nice easy going kid. I miss him.

I been keeping busy with working and caring for the dogs. We have people coming over tomorrow to see the two week old puppies. Which means the puppies will be getting baths so they smell nice when the get held up to faces. It also fluffs their fur up a bit to show off their curly hair. Their hair is only a quarter inch long at two weeks, but it is long enough to see the waves that show that they will have lots of curls as adults.

Newborns

Okay the final count is:

12. 3 black girls, 2 chocolate girls, 1 black boy, 6 chocolate boys. No wonder Gretchen was so big. The first two are the biggest, about the normal for what we usually get and the rest are very small. I gave her a shot when she was finished. This morning I gave her a small dish yogurt and a bowl of canned/dry food with an egg. I told Wes that she is going to need to eat all day long. She was already losing body fat before the babies came. Gretchen is all cleaned up and back with the babies, they are muttering to her. They woke me up a few times last night and I had to get up and make sure no one was under mom. She is really good about scooting everyone over so she can lay down and nurse.

Puppies!!

Puppies are finally arriving.

July 25th, 2009 morning

Good morning, the wait continues. After going out to pee, Gretchen is now back in her box, laying on her side with a leg resting up on the box wall. Most be more comfortable to have the leg up. We are watching the country music count down on TV, down to number 4. I got to get up and get started on my Saturday morning cleaning. Gretchen is back to pretending to sleep.

July 25th, 2009

So this is my first entry. It used to be that this would start out as "Dear Diary" funny how times have changed. Now everything we do and say is on the net. Since this is the end of the day for me, I am waiting for sleep to hit me. I don't know if I can sleep. You see I am waiting for puppies. I have been waiting for puppies all week. Gretchen is apparently on her own schedule not on my schedule which says that she should have had puppies five days ago. So now I watch her for any signs and she just stares back at me. Gretchen is a labradoodle. She is a third generation with a flatter coat, she does shed a little. Gretchen is my only shedding dog. I only really notice it when I'm sweeping the stairs. For some reason going up and down stairs is enough to jar loose hair off to collect in the corners of the steps.

Okay we just had another staring contest. She looks sleepy. I'll probably fall asleep and then she will try to sneak them out. She did this with her last litter. I had gotten off work and was settled in for the night, fell asleep and woke up two or three hours later to the sound of babies. She managed to have two before I caught her in the act. Good thing too that I woke up, one of the puppies didn't start breathing right away and we spent what felt like a lifetime rubbing him and squeezing his belly to discharge birthing fluid and blowing into his nose. He made it.

Gretchen's belly looks like a pig's belly. I cut the hair off her belly to make it easier for her babies to nurse and to keep her and them as clean as possible. So she is all pink and swollen belly and full titties. She just moved, so I paused to watch her settle back down again. Gretchen's babies will be chocolate or black. That's all that daddy Fritz will father, he has strong DNA and black is a dominate color. Fritz is a standard poodle. He is so smart. Every morning when I get up he fetches my shoes for me, I didn't teach him to do this, he just started doing it on his own. Mornings are special time for Fritz, it's when he gets extra attention and petting. He has such a nice soft coat.

Well nothing's on TV but infomercials and Gretchen is pretending to sleep, so I think that I'm going to go to sleep also.