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…

Happy birthday Phoenix, Galena & Teddy

I hate to say it, but with all the excitement over Galena’s being in heat – and then Phoenix and Topaz – I missed wishing them happy birthday.

 

Galena - Four years old!

I did mention in my post about her breeding that Galena turned four on March 9. Phoenix also had a birthday a few days prior – she turned 3 on March 4. My kids mentioned that we always celebrate Amore’s birthday but never seem to remember Phoenix’s. It helps that Mo’s in on Valentine’s Day – who could forget that?!

 



Phoenix - Three years and counting!

Phoenix's third birthday was also in the midst of this. With age comes a modicum of maturity - Phoenix is still a big puppy but not quite as energetic and full of mischief as when she was younger. Being a mom does that to you, doesn't it?

Anyhow, we wish you both a happy happy, along with Teddy from Vancouver (Galena’s littermate). May you run wild and free now that spring has (mostly) finally arrived!

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!

Happy birthday Katniss Alice, Cumin Chino, Nelly Iris, Marley Juniper, Tobey Lupin, and Chewy Zurry!

This was our Saint Patrick’s Day litter, turning one today!!

In addition to the plant theme we are using for Phoenix’s pups, we gave all these pups a second name with a Saint Patrick’s Day or Irish theme in honour of their birth date. Of course, most of our puppy families give them their own name, so the Saint Patrick’s Day name was dropped in their registered name for all but Alice and Chino (who are our breeding hopefuls), but I’ll give you the list here just for fun.

Tobey:         born “Lupin Leprechaun”

Marley:       born “Pot o’ Gold Juniper”
Nelly:           born “Iris Rose”
Alice:           born “Katniss Cloverdeen”
Chino:          born “Cumin Blackthorn”
Chewy:        born “Zurry Rainbow”

Cumin Chino

Katniss Alice

Happy first birthday! May you each find your own pot o’ gold at the end of the rainbow!

 

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…

Update - of sorts

Well, it's been a while! The main reason for silence on this blog is that not much has happened - which is why this update is not much of an update. 

But we are getting ready for the "spring rush"!

We are still waiting for Galena to go into heat, but expect it won't be too much longer. We have selected a gorgeous stud to use with her - Black Canyon Tiple Play, aka Jachson, who now is with Dreamland Doodles in the Vancouver area. This will be an AI (artificial insemination) mating, given that Jackson is so far away. We've done them before and had good success. 

The big question mark is whether we'll be able to do a second liter this spring. We are hoping so, but to move ahead we will need Topaz (most likely) or Phoenix (maybe) to go into heat by mid-March, so that we can have pups and send them home before our summer holidays in August. 

Seeing as Galena is keeping us waiting, the soonest she'd be bred would be around the second week of March, so if Topaz does come through that would mean two litters almost simultaneously. That would be a lot of puppies - we would actually hope for litters not larger than 6, I'd say, as otherwise it will get insane. But in a good way, of course!

The kids have been asking for the last couple months when the next puppies are going to come along. They were busy in fall and happy not to have the extra work and fuss that comes with puppies, but - though they're still busy - they're missing having tiny warm furry bodies to snuggle with and - once they get a bit bigger - play with. Though on the other hand, it will be nice to have the pups when the weather gets warmer and we will be able to take them outside to experience the grass!!

Keep watching this space - we hope to have real news soon.