Roll Out the Red Carpet!

Here are Maxi’s pups front and center! Aren’t they gorgeous?

Maxi is such a good mom. Puppies are all gaining nicely.

When I weigh them, I take a few minutes to stroke their tummies and nuzzle their little faces so they can get accustomed to people smells and touches.

At this stage they are both blind and deaf. But their senses of smell and touch are extremely keen. That is how they find their way to the milk station!

 Enjoy this morning’s video on YouTube. If you double click on the video it will enlarge to your entire computer screen. The background whining is from my puppy boy Potter who is so done with all the attention being diverted from him!

Already Gaining Weight

It is more common than not for puppies to lose weight their first day with their moms. But apparently Maxi has more than adequate milk (nice when there are only 6 puppies!) because everyone of them gained weight. Some more than others and I am encouraging the big weight gainers to use the less used nipples to get them into more production. As with humans, the more a nipple is stimulated the more it produces.

Ooops how did this get here? My grandson Ben who came to see the new puppies. He’s being protected by Lily and Willow

Maxi giving one of her pups a bath. Since puppies cannot control their “plumbing” yet, the mama will lick their bottoms to stimulate them to urinate and defecate.

Most of the puppies taking a nap. All except for the little black and white boy. The other boys are chocolate and white. And we have two black and white girls and one sable and white girl.

Some Havanese Puppy Updates

From time to time I’m fortunate enough to get photos of my fur babies. Here are just a few along with notes from their happy owners!

Dear Jacqui

We thought you would be interested in Sammy’s progression over the last couple of weeks.
He has quickly adjusted to our house and has himself quite comfortable.
Sadie our Wheaton is reluctant to play and tries to ignore him as much as possible.
Sammy goes for walks with Sadie and has already become familiar with the street.
He went to the vet and weighed in a little over 4 lbs and is in good health and spirit.
Sammy, iS quite smart and has at times surprised us with his knowledge.
He is certainly teething and is nipping at everything.
We hope all is well with you.

Jim and Judi

There’s just no getting a non-blurry photo of Sammy. He’s a wild one!

Hi 

We are back in Vermont and Lily is terrific. She is loosing her baby teeth for which I am most thankful and she is house broken and comes most of the time and sits consistently. She is of course brilliant.  I have a great shampoo that needs no cream rinse or detangler and is sugar based as opposed to detergent/soap based. She gets a weekly bath. I have not had her trimmed and not sure anyone around here has even seen a havanese much less trimmed one. Would appreciate a good book on grooming a havanese if you can suggest one.

Not sure if I wrote previously but Lily had a spot on the inside of a front leg that the vet thought might be a allergic reaction; but hindsight would say it may have been the halter breast piece rubbing on her. The vet did suggest that since her mother had a chicken allergy I should avoid chicken and stick with the food you had started the puppies on. Evidently chicken is one of the things that many dogs react to and so much of the food has chicken in it.

I have some pictures of Lily that are on my iPhone so will send them separate from this email. Hoe all of her litter mates are doing well and that the new litter also. Lily has certainly proved the puppy psychological profile wrong. She is wild about strangers and goes up to anyone. Very confident and outgoing. I can only guess that she was having a bad day when the testing was done.  Again Lily is doing very well and we are both so happy with her. Susan

I’m afraid Lily is getting terribly spoiled!

Jacqui,

We are most definitely enjoying the 20+  inches of snow! 

Please feel free to share my email . . I love talking about my girls to anyone who will listen.

Here are some pics that I had on my ipad…sorry about the first email I sent it by mistake while trying to upload the photos! 

Fondly,  Wendy

This family loved Breezy so much they got Chloe from us a year later! They are best buddies!

Hi Jacquie

We are crazy about this dog.  You did GOOD, he is loved by everyone who meets him.  Today he got his summer cut — Mr FredD Spiderman!  He is almost two and such a riot.

Thanks again.  Enjoy the summer.

Sue

These three are FredD. Don’t you just love his puppy cut in the middle photo?

Hi, Jackie.

Hope you are doing well. Everything here is going great!

Here is a picture of Nattie at 16 weeks. She got her final set of shots yesterday and weighed 7.7 pounds! She’s happy as can be and just so much fun to have around! As the vet says, “she got the happy gene!” We take her for walks in Old Town Alexandria and she loves everybody and everyone loves her. Housebreaking is going really well. She’s very smart and has it pretty much figured out. We have been training her on our own and it’s amazing how fast she learns. We also enrolled her in “Puppy Head Start” with a trainer and she’s an A student. We just love her!

The vet asked me to ask you a couple of questions — do you know if anyone in her line is allergic to Lepto? Since we have a weekend place that is on a river, the vet is concerned about waterborne illnesses and wants us to consider the Lepto vaccine. She says that some dogs have shown an allergic reaction and suggested I ask you. The other question is at what age have your female puppies gone into heat? She says it’s generally at 6 months but was wondering what your experience has been with Nattie’s line.

Thanks,
Darlene

This is Nattie!

 In answer to some of Wendy’s questions, Lepto is a virus to be taken quite seriously. It is spread through the urine of animals like raccoons, rats, deer, etc and can be picked up by your dog if he walks where these creatures frequent. Unfortunately, the older vaccines can pose risks to toy breeds. The good news there are newer vaccines on the market.

As for going into heat, it is different with every puppy but generally between 6 and 9 months of age.

The Results Are In!

My friend Linda assisted me in assessing the temperaments/ personalities of Marli’s puppies and they are closer in most respects than I thought. All three have socialized nicely. It helps to have them exposed to lots of dogs at various ages as well as lots of different people and children.

Dillon went first. Over the past several weeks she has gone from being the “leader of the pack” to one that kind of held back and now to a wonderfully adjusted, yet lower keyed, than the other two.

She scored three 2’s, three 3’s and a 4 on the sound sensitivity. In other words, she is a confident and outgoing puppy that will respond well to human companionship but might require a more consistent hand in training.

Delilah was next. She scored four 3’s and three 4’s, making her slightly more social but not enough to make much of a difference. She also has displayed a more outgoing character than Dillon, but again, not anything close to what I would call wild.

Daffodil was kind of all over the map, scoring two 3’s, two 4’s, a 2 for Following, a 6 for Dominance, and a 1 for Sight Sensitivity. Of the three she is definitely the most energetic and outgoing. So, while she will make a fine pet she might not be the snuggle bug some are looking for.

So, none of the pups display overly excited behaviors. They play well and seem to take turns being “boss.”

If you’d like to read more about the Volhard Test, go to the February 19, 2014 posts.

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Playing with the adult Havanese and Alex…So Much fun

I had my family here all last week which is my excuse for not posting! LOL
Anyway, it certainly did not mean the pups were being ignored. Alex and Michael played with them every day. Here are some shots of Alex, Marli’s pups and all the other dogs playing in the yard. Enjoy!

 Also, please forgive me for adding a few of our newest boy…Potter. Isn’t he special!