Galena ultrasound - Disappointing news

Galena had her ultrasound yesterday afternoon, and the news is very disappointing. It would seem that the artificial insemination didn't take and she is not pregnant. (And that means there will be no winner in the Galena edition of the Guess How Many Puppies contest, as there are no puppies...)

This happens sometimes, though it's a first for us. Every other time we've bred, whether by natural breeding or artificial insemination,  we've had a successful pregnancy. A couple of times there have been fewer puppies than we would have liked, but never zero!

We have no real explanation for why. We did everything right - did four progesterone (hormone) tests to pinpoint the best date for insemination; got quality sperm from the intended stud, did a trans-cervical insemination (which delivers the sperm right to the uterus, for best results) - but to no avail.

If you were interested in a Galena puppy, it will unfortunately not happen this summer. We intend to breed Galena on her next heat in fall (likely September for November puppies ready to go home in January 2016) and will probably try Jackson again as we were (are) really looking forward to Galena-Jackson pups. So you could wait for that litter or switch to one of Topaz's puppies - her ultrasound is on April 24 and we can't have bad news both times, can we!?!!

My daughter thought she saw a heartbeat on the ultrasound, but I'm more inclined to trust my vet's experienced eye over that of an untrained onlooker. Still, we joked about how her Guardians might wake up on May 8 or 9 to find a wee mewling bundle nestled next to mama... we can dream, can't we?

Keep your fingers crossed for better news with Topaz in 17 days...

Reminder - Guess How Many Puppies contest

This is just a friendly reminder to get your guesses in asap for the Galena Edition of our spring 2015 Guess How Many Puppies contest!

If you need details, check out the March 20 post.

The deadline for guesses for the Galena Edition is in one week - or more specifically, 11:59pm on Tuesday April 7. By early Wednesday April 8 we will have posted the results of the ultrasound with a preliminary puppy count, so no guesses will be accepted after that.

Time flies when you're having puppies

Galena is one-third through gestation – yes, ALREADY!

We’ve been so caught up with getting Topaz’s breeding accomplished that we’ve hardly had head-space for Galena’s progress, but it goes quickly when gestation is only nine weeks long. I’m not sure where these first three weeks have gone!

Puppy development starts quite slowly. The eggs are released on the day of ovulation (duh) and take two days to “ripen” so that fertilization can occur. That’s why we wait until two days post-ovulation to breed, especially when doing artificial insemination, as the fresh-chilled sperm don’t last as long as the sperm in a natural mating. 

Once breeding has taken place, it apparently takes another couple days for the sperm to get to and fertilize the egg, and another several days for the fertilized ova to reach the uterus where they will attach to the uterine wall. During that period the egg begins to divide – again this begins slowly. Three days post fertilization is when the first division, into two cells, occurs. A day later it’s four cells, then another day to get to eight cells (total of three divisions). By day 7 the ovum it’s still only at the fourth division (16 cells). During the second week it divides only twice more, to reach 64 cells and form the morula (early stage embryo of as yet undifferentiated cells) and find a place in the uterine wall to embed itself. By the end of the second week, the cells begin to differentiate, at first only into an outer shell and inner cell mass. During the third week the placentas are formed and development of the basic structure of the puppy begins in earnest. With the power of exponential growth, those 64 cells present at the edn of week two have formed over a thousand cells by the end of week three, and the beginnings of the nervous system are in place. At 20 days the ovules have finally changed shape, elongating to begin to form a puppy.

By this time we often notice some changed behaviour in the mama-to-be - she gets picky about eating (it's not just a human trait!) and might be a bit moody. Galena is known to be very picky during pregnancy –if I recall correctly, cooked chicken, bananas and raw carrots are about the only things she will agree to consume. During her first two pregnancies she barely gained any weight, and lost several pounds while she nursed the puppies, but she’s put on a several pounds since her last litter and is in good shape for another pregnancy.

Guardian homes needed

We are hoping to keep one or two of Galena’s and Topaz’s (female) pups from their May litters as breeding prospect puppies. We will need Guardian families to provide homes for them.  

To qualify as a DragonRam guardian famil, you need to live within a 10km radius of central Ottawa (or be willing and able to bring the dog to our place for testing about once a year and occasional visits). 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)

Guess How Many Puppies - Galena edition

Okay folks, time to gear up for another round of our "Guess how many puppies" contest!!



Galena

This will be Galena’s third litter.
In her first two litters, she had:

• 6 puppies
• 8 puppies.

Galena came into heat on February 28. She was in LH surge (a key hormonal precursor to ovulation) on Friday 6 March, ovulated on Sunday 8 March and was bred on Tuesday 10 March by artificial insemination.

The scientists tell us that the whelp date is generally 63 days post-ovulation, give or take three days, no matter what day the dog was actually bred. Day 63, counting from March 10, would be May 9, so according to the scientists, whelping should occur any time between May 6 and May 13. Galena tends to be on the early side; for her first two litters she whelped on day 59 and 60. That would make it May 5 or 6. Both litters arrived in the afternoon and early evening starting around 2:30 pm.

Contest parameters

Each guess must include:

• the name of the dam it is for (Galena or Topaz - see March 24 post for info on the Topaz edition)
• number of puppies
• date of whelping (birth)
• time of birth of the first puppy

Deadlines
Galena: 11:59pm on Monday April 6
Galena is scheduled for an ultrasound on the morning of April 6, at which time we will get a preliminary puppy count. We’ll post the results by the morning of April 7, so all guesses must be made before the count is made public.

Prizes

The prize for the person who guesses the correct number of puppies and has the date and time of whelping closest to the actual date and time of the first puppy’s birth will win a $10 gift card to your choice of Tim Horton's, Starbucks or Chapters. (While members of my immediate family – me and my kids –  submit guesses, if one of us wins it’s the next closest who gets the prize.)

Send your guesses in now!

It never rains but it pours...

All fall and winter I’ve been saying that we hoped to have one or maybe two litters this spring, depending on the timing of the girls’ heat cycles. We needed to have breeding done no later than the end of March, so a heat cycle started by no later than about March 20, to be able to breed the dam so as to get puppies sent home before our summer holidays. At the same time, I was also hoping to have a good 3–4 weeks between litters so as not to have double puppies the whole time or have them all the same age and ready to go home the same time.

 Galena was due to come into heat between mid-February and mid-March.

Topaz was due to come into heat sometime in March.
Phoenix was due to come into heat anwhere between mid-March and mid-May. (She usually around 6.5 months, but her last heat cycle was 8 months, so I wasn’t at all sure.)

Galena’s heat started on February 28 and we bred her on March 10 (see previous post).

The day we sent her home, we discovered that Phoenix’s heat cycle had started!! That was the evening of March 10.
The very next morning, I get an e-mail from Topaz’s guardians: Topaz has come into heat! That was March 11, but her cycle started on March 10 as well. 

Topaz

Galena



Phoenix

YIKES!!!

We are not set up to have three litters at once, and that is pretty much what it would be if we bred both Topaz and Phoenix – three litters arriving within a 10 to 14-day period!! Generally we have one at a time separated by several months; last year was the first time we had overlap and the first litter, born March 17, went home when the second litter, born May 8, was just two weeks old, which meant the second were still confined to the litter box while the first were being mobile and active. I can just see it – three litters, each with six (or more!!) puppies, running rampant all over the house. Eighteen puppies!!! No way.

 But I think we can handle two litters. We’ll put one in the puppy corner, as usual, and the second will go into the space in the living room where our guinea pig used to live (she died on March 5 at the ripe old age of 6½, which is pretty old for a guinea pig). Once they’re old enough and mostly weaned, we can stick them into the puppy corner all together.

So we will breed Topaz this spring and save Phoenix for fall (and by that time, we hope the girls will have shifted their cycles and we’ll have a bit more space between heats. After all, last winter Phoenix’s heat was in January, Galena’s in February and Topaz’s in March.)

Depending how quickly her heat progresses, Topaz will most likely be bred sometime next week. Stay tuned for details!

Puppies on the way!

I am pleased to announce that we are having puppies this spring!!!

Galena came into heat the last day of February. After a couple of progesterone tests to determine the optimal date for breeding, and making arrangements with the stud owner, we picked up the shipment of semen from the airport cargo early Tuesday morning, March 10, then headed over to the vet for an artificial insemination. Everything went quite smoothly, and by 10:00 we were heading back home. This was the day after she turned four – in fact she had to go into the vet for a final progesterone test on her birthday, March 9.

Galena is back at her guardians’ now where they will take good care of her as she grows those puppies big and strong! She is booked for an ultrasound on Monday 6 April, after which we will have a pretty good idea how many puppies she is expecting.

The sire for this litter is Black Canyon Triple Play, aka Jackson, of Dreamland Doodles in Surrey BC. Jackson is a gorgeous black tri-colour – with phantom markings and lots of parti white as well. He has had all the standard and extended health testing to make sure he has good hips, eyes, thyroid, and doesn’t carry the genes for a certain genetic eye disease known as PRA-prcd. According to Karen of Dreamland Doodles, he also has a magnificent laid-back personality. Between that and Galena’s super friendly, cuddly nature, we are sure to have a bunch of cuddly, calm and eager-to-please pups out of these two!

With Galena being chocolate who carries for both phantom and parti, as well as cream and black, and Jackson being black and expressing both phantom and parti, as well as carrying for cream, this is the breakdown of pup colours we can expect (statistically speaking):

• 37.5% black – of which ¼ solid, ¼ phantom only, ¼ parti only, ¼ phantom and parti
• 37.5% chocolate – same sub-breakdown as for black
• 25% cream – of which half solid, half parti

Of course, that’s just statistics, and it’s not easy – make that impossible – to have less than a whole puppy! So let’s just say, for the sake of ease, that Galena has eight puppies. That would mean roughly:

• one black phantom (tricolour or with white mismarks)
• one black parti
• one solid black
• one chocolate phantom (tricolour or with white mismarks)
• one chocolate parti
• one solid chocolate
• one cream parti
• one solid cream

Then of course there’s the fact that statistics bear out over large populations but results can be very skewed in a small sample. For example, with Galena’s second litter, we would have expected ¼ chocolate parti, ¼ chocolate solid, ¼ cream parti, ¼ cream solid. What we got was 1/8 chocolate parti, 1/8 chocolate solid, 1/8 cream solid and 5/8 cream parti! Go figure.

 Anyhow, with a gestation period of 63 days post-ovulation, Galena’s due date is around May 9. With her first two litters, however, she gave birth at around day 60, which would make it around May 6. Either way, these pups will be ready to go home around the first weekend of July.

 In the near future I will be putting out a call for guesses in the 2015 Galena edition of our Guess How Many Puppies Contest! Stay tuned…