puppies

And Now We Can See!

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They look like jelly bean cows! So fun now. Their eyes are just beginning to open (you can see Puppy girl #1’s eyes) and they are beginning to move around quite a bit. Later I’ll try to get a video so you can see for yourselves. For today I have individual shots, sexes and weights.
The numbers represent their birth order.
This is boy puppy #4. He is the one I’m still bottle feeding. He weighs 15.7 ounces and is a sable parti.
Puppy 4
This is Puppy girl #1. She is a black parti which means she is more black than white. She weighs 14.9 ounces

Puppy girl 1

This is Puppy girl #2. She weighs 1# 2.8 ounces! She is a black parti and I know her by the “heart’ on her back.

Puppy 2

This is Puppy girl #3. At 13.5 ounces she is the lightweight of the litter and is a black parti.
Puppy 3

This is puppy boy 5. He is a chocolate parti. Both Maxi and Dino carry the recessive gene for chocolate so, while they are both black and white, they can produce chocolate and white babies! He weighs 1 # 4.4 ounces

Puppy 5

This is puppy girl #6. She weighs 14.7 ounces. I know her by the two “specs” on her back. She is a sable parti. Sables will often fade quite a bit so both my sable pups will likely resemble our Marli when they grow up.

Puppy 6

This is puppy boy #8. He is a black part and I know him by the three dots that run across his back end. He has a sweet blaze and a smidgeon of white around his nose. He weighs 14.5 ounces.
Puppy 8

This is Puppy girl #7. She weighs 14.4 ounces and is a black parti. I love her full blaze and white muzzle.

Puppy 7

Plump Little Puppies

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Maxi’s puppies are getting so plump! Still do not do much besides eat and sleep. But, their eyes should open soon. They are twelve days old and at this stage are still in the neonatal stage. They are born with a keen sense of smell so they can find their mother’s nipples. Their eyes and ears are tightly closed so they do not hear their own little squeaks, nor do they see each other! They sleep 90% of the time!

I spend several minutes a day holding and caressing each of the puppies so they get used to me. I want them to have a comforting and warm experience with their first human. I stroke their heads, caress their tiny paws and gently tickle their tummies.

Puppies at this stage do not even have control over their bowels so mom has to lick them to stimulate elimination.

Here are a couple photos I took yesterday.

                      This is the little boy I am still bottle feeding. However, today he actually gained a few grams in                      between feeding so I think he is finally figuring out the nursing routine!

Is this not the sweetest face ever?!

A puppy yawn

Yin and Yang

Catching up With Hermoine

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We are back in Florida now and I had the lovely opportunity to catch up with Hermoine, who is now Meisha, and her parents Linda and Steve. I am happy to report they are one very happy family. We had a nice chat that covered everything from grooming tips to food to socializing and “obedience” training. Nothing serious, mind you!

Anyway here are some pix from our visit.

This is one of my favorite parts of breeding. Nothing better than seeing the little ones you were responsible for bringing into this world and knowing they have found the very best family!

Rehoming Willow

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Willow is the little girl out of my Marli and my friend’s boy Ruger. She was born February 27, 2014. I had kept her as a show prospect but it doesn’t appear she is going to get as big as I had hoped. Marli stands 8 1/2″ at the withers and Willow is about 9″. They both weigh about 8 pounds. Willow will get a little larger but I am looking for a girl about 10 pounds and I don’t think she’ll get that big.

She is a darling girl. Has lots of spunk but also loves to cuddle. She plays very well with my other dogs, especially my 10 month old, Potter. And, when we had Maxi’s puppies here Willow was their “adult” playmate.

Willow has a very soft, silky coat. She is all black except for a white “goatee”, a white patch on her chest and four white “slippers” on her feet. You can see lots of photos of Willow on this blog. But here are a couple of my favorites.

Being a breeder is a wonderful thing. But having to make tough decisions like this one is…..tough!
We have to have a discerning eye and an open mind and sometimes your heart gets in the way of all this. I could wait longer to see if Willow does get bigger but it wouldn’t be fair to her. She needs to begin bonding with her forever home!

If you’d like to meet Willow, her mom and me, drop me an e-mail and we’ll set something up.

Romping in the back yard in Florida

Willow loves her toys.

Giving Padfoot some sound words of advice

At the beach on Lake Huron

Time to Start Taking Temperatures

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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.