Time to Start Taking Temperatures

Taking Maxi’s temperature will help me know within 24 hours when she is actually going to whelp her little Havanese puppies.  She is due Saturday so I began Monday. I take her temps in the morning and the evening when she has rested a while…which is pretty much all the time right now!

If she gets any bigger she’ll be dragging on the floor!

Her temps are hovering between 100.0 and 100.8 degrees Fahrenheit. A dog’s normal temp is 101.5 but the hormones prevalent in a pregnant bitch will lower her temp to closer to 100.0 during her last trimester.

Maxi chilling this morning while the others play around her!
You can’t really tell from this photo but Maxi is as big as a doghouse!

With a little luck we will catch the dramatic surge to over 101.0 F which happens 12 hours before the drop to the 98.0 F area. When her temp drops I will know the puppies should arrive in the next 24 hours!!

So, we actually have about a 36 hour heads up on when the pups are likely to be born, which is very helpful.

This is Maxi’s private apartment! I think she likes it. The box on the left is where she’ll whelp her pups.

We Have Havanese Puppies!

Our pretty girl, Maxi, whelped nine puppies New Years Eve! I knew things were beginning to happen when she would not leave her whelping box. She started labor about 3 pm that day…a mild restlessness and urge to nest and by 5 pm she started contractions. The first puppy, a boy, arrived at 5:45 PM weighing a whopping 5.3 ounces!

Eight of the puppies are black and white parti. One is mostly white with black on her head and the others have wonderful markings in a variety of patterns. The ninth puppy (a boy) appears to be chocolate. Time will tell as this is a fairly rare color. Maxi carries for chocolate but we aren’t sure if Dino does or not. 

I will try to post photos (and ones with better clarity)  every few days so stay tuned!

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Household Chemicals and Your Pets

I created this blog for several reasons. One was to keep track of my puppy families. But another is to offer up information I hope will be helpful, not just to my families, but to all pet owners.

This week I’m doing some research into items commonly used inside and outside our homes with regard to how they can affect our pets. There is, fortunately, a lot of information on the web and I hope to share some of those links with you here.

I’m sure all of us have had the unfortunate experience of losing a pet prematurely, or have close friends who have. Havanese, for example, should live from 12 to 14 years. There are many who live well beyond 15 years. And, sadly there are some Havanese who don’t make it to their 8th birthday. Sometimes accidents take the lives of our dear ones but, as often as not, cancer is the cause. Exposure to chemicals in and around our homes has long been suspected of causing these cancers.

Think about all the products we use on our floors, on our carpets, on our driveways, in our gardens and on our lawns. Then think about your pet who spends the majority of its time in these areas.

The Truth About Cats, Dogs and Lawn Chemicals” is a PDF file put out by pesticidewatch.org and it is a real eye opener! I encourage all my readers to take a good look at this document.

I also hope my readers will feel free to comment on this article and add any information they have discovered about household chemicals or green alternatives.

One final note…I would appreciate your spreading the word about my blog. The more readers we have, the more information we can disperse…a kind of forum for all dog families! 

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Update on My Own Havanese Family

Here are some photos I took the other day of the five Havanese in my life.  Maxi’s puppy, Digger, (formerly Burst) lives with my daughter on the weekends and with me during the week so he doesn’t have to be cooped up while she’s at work. Lily is the girl I bought from Kathy Ambler. And, of course, Phoebe, Maxi and Marli are my older girls.

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