Monday 31 March 2014

Phoenix puppies - two weeks old!

It's amazing how much development can happen in the space of severn short days! Phoenix's pups are growing by leaps and bounds - they now range from 600-800g, almost three times their birth weight!



Their eyes are almost all open - just the last-born still has eyes mostly shut. Ears are also opening. This opens a whole new world of sensation to the little doods. They still rely mostly on smell and touch, but over the coming days and weeks they will start to use their vision and, in particular, hearing, more and more as those senses gain in acuity and precision.





Their leg muscles are also growing stronger bit by bit. They cannot yet stand but they are starting to try! When they crawl, they on occasion manage to lift their bodies off the ground for a fraction of a second, as opposed to simply "swimming" like little alligators.




And we have seen the first signs of play! Two puppies interacting in a way beyond just crawling over each other, but actually responding to the actions of the other. It is too cute,and will continue tokeep us entertained as they become more and more like real little dogs.

Wednesday 26 March 2014

Puppy development - First month

Topaz has completed the first month of gestation. In my posts about Phoenix's gestation, I've referred to the first, second, and third "trimester," to relate the 9-week canine pregnancy with the 9-month human one. However, with dogs the scientists and doctors actually tend to divide the gestation period into two parts of about a month each.

The first month is embryonic development. This covers fertilization, implantation of the morule in the uterine wall, and the initial stages of development before the embryo starts to really take the form of a dog. In this early stage, the nervous system is formed (brain, spinal corn, nerves). The basic shape changes from round to elongated, with a head-bump at one end and a narrow body-tail at the other. By the end of the first month the embryos are about 14-18mm in length. Up until this time the embryos are still somewhat susceptible to malformation and resorption by the mother's body.

Puppy embryo
 Changes in the dam are generally limited to fussy eating and perhaps some intensified affection or possibly moodiness. Physical changes (belly swelling or mammary gland development) are not noticeable yet.

Monday 24 March 2014

Phoenix puppies - First week

Phoenix's puppies are now one week old! They remain very much like little squirmy sausage-alligoators, "swimming" across the blankets to get where they want to go, still blind and functionally deaf but very cute nonetheless!! They are growing very well and have roughly double their weight in the past week.
 
Phoenix is a very quiet and attentive mama, not overly protective but still alert to any danger. She does not want the other big dogs to come near her puppies, but is quite happy to accept human visitors. So far we have had only fairly well-known people come to our house so she has not had any cause for alarm by the presence of strangers. Starting next week we will allow less well-known individuals to come, though puppy visits should wait until the pups are at least 4 weeks old and more like real little dogs.
 
Here are some photos to help satisfy the need for soft cuddlies!
 
Black phantom female
 
 
Chocolate phantom female 
 
Caramel/apricot female
 
 
Caramel male (lighter) 
 
 
Caramel male (darker) 
 
 
Chocolate phantom male 
 

Tuesday 18 March 2014

Phoenix's puppies have arrived!!

Phoenix is now the proud mama of SIX puppies!!They were born yesterday, March 17.
We were monitoring her temperature since Friday evening. A drop in temperature to below 100 F on Sunday morning that persisted until Sunday evening indicated that we could expect the puppies to arrive within the next 24 hours. I waited up with her until 11pm, then went to bed to get a bit of sleep. Phoenix was rather unsettled all night, going into and out of the crate in my bedroom, jumping up on the bed and asking for snuggles or licking any appendage of mine she could get at. Around 3:00 she became even more restless and agitated, so at 3:15 I got out of bed and took her into the whelping box in our kitchen puppy corner.

At 4:00 I woke the kids, who had insisted on being woken in time to be of assistance (they are mid-woofs in training!) and not just once the puppies were actually popping out! We all waited, bunled up in blankets and slippers in the cold kitchen, drinking hot chocolate and giving Phoenix all the attention she sought as her labour continued. The kids were starting to worry that the pups might not arrive before they had to leave for school. But a temperature rise to above 100 F around 5am indicated the pups should start coming very soon, within the hour. And indeed, shortly before 6am the first one arrived, birthed by my son. My daughter assisted with the second birth some 40 minutes later, and then they alternated until they had to catch the school bus at 7:35, leaving me to handle the final birth on my own.



We have
Puppy #1 - born at 5:49 - M - caramel/apricot - 230g
Puppy #2 - born at 6:30 - M - chocolate phantom - 203g
Puppy #3 - born at 6:41 - F - caramel/apricot - 200g
Puppy #4 - born at 6:50 - M - caramel/apricot - 225g
Puppy #5 - born at 7:18 - F - black phantom - 197g
Puppy #6 - born at 7:45 - F - chocolate phantom - 230g
**note: the difference between caramel and apricot is essentially that the caramel have brown noses and the apricot have black noses. As this pigment isn't always evident immediately, we will wait until we are sure which is which before declaring "caramel" or "apricot" for those pups.


The winner of our Guess How Many Puppies contest (the Phoenix edition) is Suzanne W (mama to Matilda, one the pups from Galena's first litter), who guessed 6 puppies with the first arriving March 16 at 10:20!! (My son actually guessed a time 2 hours closer, but I have a policy that if a family member wins, the next closest non-family member also receives a prize.)

Mama and babies are all doing well. Phoenix is an attentive and caring mama.
Stay tuned for updates about once a week!

P.S. Forgive the bad quality of these photos - taken on my iPhone in a rush before I left for work.

Friday 14 March 2014

Guess How Many Puppies: Topaz edition

Since we're having two litters this spring, we have another round of our Guess How Many Puppies contest - this one for Topaz's litter, due around May 9.

Here's a reminder of the rules: Your guess should indicate how many puppies you think Topaz will have, and what date and time you think the first puppy will arrive. The winner is the person who gets the number of puppiesright and is closest to the actual date and time.The prize is your choice of a $10 Timmy's or Chapters gift card. (Only one guess per person.) (If a member of my immediate family happens to have the closest guess, the next closest non-family member will also be declared winner and receive a prize.)

The following info will help you make an educated guess.

Number of pups
  • Topaz was one of five puppies. Her mother, Amore, had small litters (3-5), but Amore'herself was one of 9 pups.
  • This is Topaz's first litter. First litters are often smaller  than subsequent ones.
  • Topaz is about 18-20 lbs, so a bit on the small side.
Date / time of first birth
  • Topaz ovulated on March 8. Gestation is about 9 weeks so her due date is May 10, give or take 3-4 days (close to Mother's Day!). Most of our mamas have whelped either early or right on time. This is Topaz's first litter so we can't provide any past info. Best to stick with the +/-4 days average - between May 6 and May 13.
  • Dogs can deliver any time of day or night. Our previous 9 litters have mostly arrived in the later afternoon or early evening, with just one in the wee hours of the morning and one around an early breakfast time.
  • Another interesting observation - our litters have arrived on Jan 29, Mar 9, Mar 17, April 19, May 21, Aug 6, Sep 1, and Nov 25. Notice a pattern? All but one on odd-numbered days of the month. I'm sure there's some scientific basis for that (lol!)  
Deadline: April 8 (TBC) at 10pm

Topaz's ultrasound, giving us a rough puppy count, will take place around April 8, in the late afternoon or early evening. As it will take a bit of time to post the results, the deadline for guesses is a few hours later. (We'll update the deadline date once the ultrasound has been scheduled.)

Prize

Your choice of a $10 Timmy's or Chapters gift card.

Submit your guesses to me via e-mail (roma@dragonramdoodles.com) or as a comment to this post, or on our Facebook page (Dragon Ram Doodles). Once I've received a few I'll post them on the blog. (Limit of one guess per person!)

Happy puppy guesses!

Wednesday 12 March 2014

Final stages of puppy development

Phoenix's gestation period is almost over. Now at 8 weeks, the puppies could be born any time and be viable.

During week 7, development of organs is almost complete. From now on the main focus is gaining size and weight to give them a better chance at survival outside the womb.Near the end of week 7 the bones calcify and can be seen on an x-ray.

By the end of week 8 the pups have sprouted fur. They have completed their prenatal development and are ready for birth. A few organs - notably eyes and ears - continue to develop for up to 2 weeks post-partum, but otherwise they are all there. It's getting pretty crowded and we can see movement in the form of ripples along the belly when the pups move inside, and feel their little bodies - especially the heads. They have maneuvered into position for optimal birth - mostly head-first, but feet-first is also not uncommon and not dangerous for pups (it's being born with the spine to the bottom instead of top that can be problematic).
Late foetal development
 Phoenix is noticeably uncomfortable now. She is getting ready to give birth - nosing around the house, snuffling and pawing at blankets. We will be setting the whelping box up in the next couple of days so she can get used to it and know where to go when the big day comes.

Stay tuned for a birth announcement any day now!

Tuesday 11 March 2014

Topaz's upcoming litter

Our second spring litter will be from Topaz, our dark apricot girl who is Amore's daughter from her final litter. Topaz is about 20 lbs and 15" at the shoulder, and she turns 2 in mid-April. She came into heat in early March and was bred to Canadian Doodles Donovan, a black phantom boy who carries parti.
Topaz

Both Donovan and Topaz carry parti, and Donovan also carries cream. This means we will have another lovely rainbow litter, full of little gold/caramel/apricot/red, chocolate and black babes, with about one quarter of them parti. Topaz doesn't carry phantom, however, so there won't be any phantom puppies in the litter but they all will be phantom carriers.

Donovan

We expect to keep back one or two females from this litter as potential future breeders. Our top choices will be chocolate parti, dark apricot and black parti - to help us towards our goal of specializing in black phantoms and dark apricots/reds down the road.

We are expecting Topaz's babies to arrive around May 9- about three weeks after her second birthday.Topaz's ultrasound will take place the second week of April to confirm pregnancy and get a preliminary puppy count.

If you are interested in one of these pups, please contact me by e-mail (roma@dragonramdoodles.com). Deposits will be accepted following the ultrasound.

Sunday 9 March 2014

Happy birthday, Galena & Teddy!

Galena and her brother, Teddy Malachite, turn 3 today!!

Teddy lives in North Vancouver, while our Mama Galena lives close by in Gatineau. The latest news from Teddy, a beautiful black boy, is that he loves to go to work with his mama and keep her and her office colleagues company. Couldn’t we all use a little bit of dog therapy on those rough days?!

As for Galena, she is the proud mama of 14 pups (in just two litters!). She loves to snuggle with her humans, play with her brother Carny-Frisou, and enjoy long walks and longer naps. She is looking forward to spring and being able to spend more time outdoors in her backyard.

We wish you both a very happy 3rd birthday! All the best for the year ahead!

Friday 7 March 2014

Topaz in heat!

Our girl Topaz came into heat a bit over a week ago. A female generally becomes fertile around 6-20 days after bleeding begins. The way to pinpoint ovulation and the best time to breed is to monitor hormone levels, specifically progesterone, which rises as she enters estrus and stays elevated throughout pregnancy, and luteinizing hormone (LH), which surges to trigger the release of the ova.

Topaz's progesterone levels on Tuesday were still low but yesterday the LH surge occurred, which means she will ovulate Saturday and be ready for breeing Sunday-Tuesday. The eggs require a couple of days to mature prior to fertilization, so optimal breeding (for a natural mating) starts at the time of ovulation or shortly after and continues for about five days. Fresh sperm are viable for 5-7 days in the female, so they have plenty of time to find the ova and do their little job of creation.


Stay tuned for news of success and the next round in Guess How Many Puppies contest (the Topaz edition)!

Wednesday 5 March 2014

Guardian Homes needed!

Now that Phoenix's puppies are soon to be  born, we can confirm that we are looking for several Guardian families to provide homes for breeding prospect puppies. We hope to keep one male and one female from this litter, and up to two females from Topaz's litter later this spring.

To qualify to be DragonRam guardian families, you need to live within a 10km radius of central Ottawa. You need to agree to provide a safe, secure, happy home for the dog, feed only high-quality, grain-free food, provide regular veterinary care, and overall provide a loving, caring home. We retain breeding rights to the dog for up to 4 litters, and require access to the dog for breeding-related health checks, breeding and whelping.

You need to agree to stay in touch so we can schedule breedings and so your dog remains familiar with us and our home. Males may be called upon multiple times a year to provide breeding services, which usually involves a couple hours every so often. Females need to stay with us for a few days when bred, and them come to our home about a week before puppies are due. The female whelps her puppies at our house and remains with us until the puppies are weaned by around 7 weeks of age.

In recognition of the ongoing relationship and our demands on you and your time (and dog), the price for a Guardian Puppy is substantially reduced.

If you think this might interest you, please refer to our website and/or contact us and we will be happy to provide more information. (roma@dragonramdoodles.com)

Tuesday 4 March 2014

Happy 2nd birthday Phoenix!

Our little girl Phoenix turns 2 today!!

She's not such a little girl any more, either! At almost seven weeks' pregnant (equivalent to seven months' human gestation), she has a big swollen belly full of six or seven puppies!

Phoenix has always been a big pup. All last summer and fall she and Amore would love to play chase out in the field nearby. Whereas the previous summer it was always Phoenix chasing Mo, last summer it was Mo chasing Phoenix, as Mo was now a bit smaller and just a tad slower! (And wore out a bit faster, too.)

Phoenix loves to sit on our laps, but she never lies down - she always has to sit with her fore feet straight. We try to get her to lie down by pulling her front feet out, but moments later she's back in a sit. Makes it awkward when watching TV, as her head is always in the way!

Phoenix sleeps with my son on his top bunkbed, and she has become very adept at climbing the steep ladder with little or no help. I'm sure she'll miss her boy when she gives birth and has to stay with her pups, but she'll have their little warm wriggly bodies to keep her warm and provide company.

But she is still our baby, even now as a two-year-old mama-to-be!!

Happy birthday, big girl!
Best wishes for the coming year
and especially with your new pups-to-come!

Monday 3 March 2014

Gayle Watkins' Transformational Dog Breeding

I had the pleasure this past weekend of attneding the Avidog Advanced Transformational Dog Breeding seminar hosted by the Ottawa Valley Golden Retriever Club at the Kemptville Campus of the University of Guelph.

This was a weekend packed with great info, lots of wonderful ideas, and super tips to help me (and all the attendees!) improve our breeding programs. Over the next while I plan to implement many of these ideas.

Most immediately important, and the main reason I wanted to attend, was the Advanced Puppy Evaluation Test (APET). This is a method Gayle developed to assess puppy temperament. To date the most common method is the Volhard method, which asseses a range of behaviours in response to various stimuli. The APET goes even further, assessing more traits (32 to be precise!) using a longer and different type of process.

APET divides the traits being assessed between stable traits and changeable traits. Stable traits are those that essentially do not change over the lifetime of the dog. These include energy level, environmental and people focus, pain threshold,  forgiveness, hand shyness, and 3-D awareness. These traits can be worked with with and influenced, but not changed. Changeable traits are those that can be changed with training. They include problem-solving and learning, patience, confience, and courage, among others.

The types of traits that are valued in a puppy will depend on what that puppy's job witll be (hunting, retrieving, herding, pet), the type of home to which that puppy will be going, and the amount of experience with dogs that the owners have. A puppy that will do well with a retired couple whose kids have grown up and who live quiet lives might well be totally misplaced in a young family with three noisy, active kids under the age of six. While that seems obvious, the APET provides a tool to specifically identify which temperament traits each puppy exhibits and to what degree, which is extremely useful in assessing which puppy will best suit which home situation.

It is our goal to implement the APET with our spring litters. We'll still be in learning mode with the first few litters, but this should help us to identify more precisely which puppy we recommend to you. This also means that we may be less willing to accept firm "criteria" from puppies in relation to colour and sex, as the oartucular cream female puppy we have might be best suited for the family that has indicated a preference for a chocolate male, for example. But in all cases we would tell you why we think a given puppy is right for you, and to give you a choice between at least two different pups that we think would suit your home situation.

My daughter attended the second day with me so she could also learn about APET and, I hope, help with puppy evaluation, as she has a good eye and feel for puppy behaviour.

The seminar also provided an introduction into the fascintating world of epigenetics - how the environment can change the way a gene works without changing the gene itself - and population genetics - how breeding choices can influence the overall gene pool of a given dog breed. But more of that in a future post, I hope!

Saturday 1 March 2014

Topaz in heat!

Well, it seems Topaz has just gone into heat as of a couple days ago. We will begin monitoring her hormone levels to determine her ovulation date, and within the next week o two expect to report a successful breeding!

The male of choice is Donovan. (My website still says Roary, but I've changed my mind! Will update the website soon.) Donovan is Roary's full brother from the same litter, but where Roary is apricot-red, Donovan is a gorgeous black-and-tan phantom. This means that all the puppies will carry phantom, but there won't be any actual phantoms because (here's the lesson in genetics!), while Topaz carries the actual phantom colour genes, she also carries two "blocker" genes that prevent the phantom colouring from being expressed. The pups will get one blocket gene from her and one "unblocked" gene from Donovan. If one of these pups is then bred to a phantom, about half of the resulting pups would show the phantom colouring.

So what colours and patterns can we expect? There should be about 25% caramel with brown noses, 25% in shades of gold-apricot-red with black noses, 25% cafe-chocolate, and 25% black. About three quarters of them should be solid and about one quarter parti (white with coloured spots), as both mama and papa are parti carriers. Unless, (Of course, it could end up like Galena's fall litter where we had 3/4 parti and 1/4 solid when it ought to have been the other way around!)

Depending on the actual date of breeding, we are looking at puppies being born in early May, and ready to go to new homes right at the beginning of summer. What a great time to get a puppy - all you teachers out there!!

Stay tuned for news of a successful breeding!