The Incredibles

Dime and the bigger pups are thriving, Jack Jack is hanging on in there and although I am not optimistic about his chances we are trying, and where there's life there's hope. This litter have been named after characters from the film The Incredibles as we felt it was incredible that Dime had 8 puppies hidden in a not particularly huge bump, and incredible that after a prolonged 1st stage labour resulting in a C Section we came home with Mum and 8 live puppies. We have Jack Jack, Bob, Lucius and Buddy(possibly Syndrome, not sure which yet) the girls are Helen, Violet, Edna and Mirage. They will have ID collars in a few days, currently they are far too small for them :)

We currently have 2 boys available, please feel free to ring for a chat should you be interested.

The webcam is now up and running (link top right on this page), it will usually be on from about 10:30 am to 10:30pm, the volume is muted.

Edited on 1st May to say that despite our best efforts Jack Jack quietly slipped away yesterday evening.

Not quite as planned.

Dime started 1st stage of labour in the early hours of Sat morning, to cut a long story short, as I haven't seen my bed since then, her labour just didn't progress. After speaking to the vet we decided she needed to be seen. We got to the surgery at about 2:30 where she was examined and found to have a puppy in the birth canal, but too far in for the vet to help it out. Dime was given a shot of oxytocin and within half an hour she delivered the tiniest standard puppy I have ever seen, weighing in at just 140gms I expected him to be stillborn, but he came out with a heartbeat so a little bit of work got him up and running.

After another hour Dime was still not really making much effort at pushing so the decision was made to perform a C section. I was expecting a small litter of maybe 5 or 6 but she has a family of 8, 4 girls and 4 boys.

Dime is home now, she is still pretty groggy but is currently laying nicely with her pups, who are all eager to feed. The tiddler, christened Jack Jack (explanation will follow after I've had a snooze) is going to need help and a good dollop of luck if he is to have a chance of surviving, but he is currently active and he has taken a little formula from a bottle as he can't compete with his larger siblings. Hopefully if we can get him through the first few days he will gain strength and vigour and will be able to start to jostle for a place at the milk bar.

Those who have followed me over the years would now be expecting the webcam to be up and running, but that will have to wait for now as my priority is to ensure that Dime and her pups are ok and the webcam is an added pressure for me. Unfortunately there was obviously no way of streaming the birth, but I will get the webcam running as soon as I am comfortable that everyone is ok.

Here are a couple of very quick pics taken just now.

Puppies won't be long :)

Dime is in early labour, lots of panting and restlessness. Cam will go on once things start to get interesting, this could be in half an hour or tomorrow morning. I will take this opportunity to mention that whilst it is normally an incredible experience witnessing the birth of new life, it will be messy and things can and do go wrong.

It's now 7pm and not much to report, she is managing to relax between episodes of panting.

8am Sunday morning and she is taking her time, this stage can last up to 48 hrs so no cause for concern at the moment, just a little impatience (and a lot of tiredness) on my part :)

Agility dogs

After a long winter break (ground was far too wet to safely run dogs) Eliza and Cash have restarted their agility training, just feels so good to be back out there working with them and I know that they really enjoy it to. My sister visited this weekend and she was good enough to take some pictures for me.

 This photo made me laugh, we started with the jumps low to warm Cash up, he still jumped full height!

Dime is approaching her due date now, she has filled out nicely though she is not huge, I am guessing 5/6 puppies which would be a lovely sized litter.

Sunshine, at last

Firstly I would like to thank everyone who has contacted me about Dollar, I was overwhelmed by all the kind words via personal messages, sympathy cards and comments both here and on facebook, each and every message helped.

At long last winter seems to be behind us, it is so good to see the sun again. The dogs had a blast on their walk today, all were clipped and bathed yesterday so were feeling good :) Dime is filling out now, not huge so we are hoping for a nice but manageable litter.

Beetles grubs are doing really well, both are currently available.

The Monsters inc kittens are living up to their names are proper monsters, cracking little kittens. They had their 1st vaccinations last week so just 2 weeks before they leave for pastures new.