Guardian home needed!

As I mentioned in my last post, we are planning to keep one of Harmony's puppies as a potential breeder. 

That means we are looking for a Guardian Family to keep this lovely pup and help us make our breeding program a success. By placing breeding dogs in Guardian Homes, we ensure our breeders are raised in a family setting, given lots of love and attention, and well-looked after. This also helps to make an urban breeding program viable, as we could not keep enough dogs in our home for a full-fledged breeding program, and we do not believe in rehoming adult dogs unless absolutely necessary. When our breeders retire, they do not need to go live somewhere else - they simply stay with their Guardian Family in the home they have known since puppyhood. 

Since our Guardians are working with us to make our breeding program a success, the price of a Guardian dog is reduced and/or rebated. Since we are not 100% certain how much use we may make of the pups we will be keeping this year, we are taking a slightly different approach - the Guardians will pay a reduced price for the puppy, and if/when we choose to breed her, we will pay the Guardians a set amount for each litter up to the full purchase price of the dog. In this way, if we end up not using a puppy, we will not have simply given away one of our best pups. 

Guardians must live within 40km of central Ottawa (preferably less) and be willing to bring the dog to us when necessary. This involves a couple of medical checkups during the first year, checkups once every 18 months after that, and access to the dog for breeding purposes. For females, the dog comes to us to be bred, and then comes to stay with us one week before the expected arrival of her pups. She stays until the pups are weaned at age about 7 weeks, and then goes back to her family. 

We normally have three or four litters with each female before she retires. She would have her first litter at around 2 years of age, and then we would aim to com8plete all litters by the time she is 5 years old. 

The pups we will choose from for Harmony's litter are:
Harlequin (chocolate/white parti girl)
Bella (black female with white markings)
Dakota (chocolate female)
Which one is ultimately selected depends on the results of the temperament test and initial vet checkup. As such, the decision will be made after March 13. 

If you are interested in being a Guardian, please send an email to roma@dragonramdoodles.com. We will be looking for three Guardians this year - one puppy from each of Harmony's, Topaz's, and Phoenix's litters. 

Galena bred

Our girl Galena (mama to Angel, Nellie, Matilda, and lots of other lovelies) went into heat on May 15. Since she usually “ripens” pretty quick, we tested her hormone levels on May 19 but she was still really low. We retested on May 24 and found she was pretty much ready.

Galena and Cumin honeymooned together, and now we are expecting another 2016 litter! Her due date will be around July 26, and these puppies will be ready for new homes the last weekend in September. The pups will be chocolate (solid or phantom) and caramel. They will be full siblings to Fozzie, Cooper, Charlie-Peeta, and Charlie-Evrial in Ottawa, and Kobe and Romeo in Toronto.

Stay tuned!

Puppies on the way!

So here it is, fall again – leaves are changing colour, kids thoughts are turning to pumpkins and candy (oh, and turkey and pie before that!), and this morning there was a definite hint in the air of colder days to come…

In the midst of all the fall busy-ness, I am happy to announce that we have puppies on the way!! Or at least, we sure hope we do. Galena disappointed us this spring by not becoming pregnant after artificial insemination, but this time we did it the natural way and that has always been successful in the past, so we have our fingers crossed. (And toes, and earlobes, and eyeballs, and… )

Galena was bred to our very own Cumin Chino on September 21 and 22 – over a week ago already! This was Cumin’s first stud job and he performed marvellously. Galena’s heat cycle progressed very quickly this time, so we were lucky not to miss it – Whew! We have to thank her brother Frisou for his strong hints that the time was ripe!

We will be doing an ultrasound on October 23 to confirm pregnancy and get an initial puppy count. Here’s hoping this one shows a lot of teeny-tiny foetuses developing in there!

This means that, if all goes as expected, we will have little wriggly bundles of fur arriving at our place sometime around November 18-21. We will get to enjoy them over the Christmas holiday season, and then send them off to new homes mid- to late January. Sure hope the puppy buyers come flocking in the depths of winter!

Galena and Cumin’s puppies will be delicious shades of chocolate – both solid and phantom (chocolate with tan muzzle, eyebrows, feet & butt) – as well as yummy caramel.

Watch for news of the ultrasound in late October!

Guess How Many Puppies - Topaz edition

Okay folks, time to gear up for the Topaz edition round of our "Guess how many puppies" contest!! (You still have time to submit guesses for Galena, too – see our March 20 post for Galena’s details.)

This will be Topaz’s second litter.

In her first litter she gave birth to 6 puppies (though one was stillborn; only five survived.)

Topaz came into heat on March 10. She was in LH surge on March 19, ovulated on March 21 and was bred on March 22 by natural breeding.

Counting from March 21, day 63 would be May 23, so whelping should occur any time between May 20 and May 26. With her first litter Topaz gave birth on day 61. That would make it about May 21 (my daughter’s birthday, and the birthday of Garnet’s first litter!). She also gave birth starting mid-afternoon. We don’t actually know exactly what time the first pup was born, because she had given birth to the first two before we even noticed it, but we estimate it was around 3:30 to 4:00pm. (When my kids got home from school there were no puppies; by 4:30 the first two had arrived.)

Contest parameters

You are invited to submit a guess to each of the Galena and Topaz editions of this spring’s contest.

Each guess must include:

- the name of the dam it is for (Galena or Topaz)

- number of puppies

- date of whelping (birth)

- time of birth of the first puppy

Deadlines

Topaz: 11:59pm on TBD

Topaz will have her ultrasound between April 22 and 28. I’ll announce the cut-off date for her contest once we have a firm date for the ultrasound. (Watch here for an announcement of the ultrasound date. The contest will close at midnight that evening.)

Galena: 11:59pm on Tuesday April 7

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.

There will be one winner for each contest. (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!

Topaz is expecting!

I am pleased to announce that Topaz has now been bred!!!

Topaz

Topaz came into heat on March 10, the same day we bred Galena. Progesterone tests were done on March 16 and 18 to determine the best date for breeding. They pointed to March 22 as the optimal honeymoon date, so we called for Zip to come do his job, which he was happy to perform!

Topaz  will have an ultrasound in late April (date TBD), after which we will have a pretty good idea how many puppies she is expecting.

The sire for this litter is Springville Zippity Doo Dah, or Zip for short, of Canadian Doodle Puppies here in Ottawa. Zip is a handsome red parti boy who will be turning four in a few weeks. He has had several litters for Canadian Doodles – in fact, his son Donovan was the sire to Topaz’s first litter! Okay, that means that these pups will be half-siblings to her first litter on their dam’s side, and uncles and aunts to the first litter (older pups) on their sire’s side! Could get confusing come family reunion time…

Zip

Zip has had all the standard health testing to make sure he has good hips, eyes, etc and doesn’t carry the genes for a certain genetic eye disease known as PRA-prcd. Zip lived with us for a couple of months when he first arrived from Oregon so he knows us well, though we haven’t seen him in a while.

With Topaz being solid (light) apricot and carrying for parti, and Zip being red parti, we can expect all the pups to be in shades of gold-apricot-red, with half of them solid and half parti. Some might carry for phantom as well, but none will express it as Topaz carries two “blocker” genes and even if she didn’t, phantom doesn’t express when pups are in the cream-red colour range.

Anyhow, with a gestation period of 63 days post-ovulation, Topaz’s due date is around May 23. With her first litter she gave birth at around day 61 or 62, which would make it around May 21 or 22. (We could have another litter born on my daughter’s birthday – May 21!!)  These pups will be ready to go home around the third weekend of July.

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

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!