Day 36 - Messy mess

The puppies woke me up this morning in a raucous mood. "We're hungry, play with us," etc etc. Fury is not having it anymore. "There's your food, you too good for your food?" she asks. They have big, fatty bellies now so I am okay with her deciding not to feed them every time they cry - although I totally understand why moms get up in the middle of the night. I don't want to torture my poor roommates with puppy screaming.

Actually, when I finally got out of bed this morning, Laura had a couple puppies out and had given them their pan of dog food. Have I mentioned how much I love my roommates? Couple that with Yishai, who very much considers this litter to also be partly his responsibility, and we have a village raising these dogs. Which reminds me that I need to have kids over to play with the puppies again. I wonder who I can cajole into that? :)

Here's one of the outtakes from stacking session #1. Daca's so cute with her half-half action.
Puppy seasick - the age old "how to stack a squirrelly puppy" method.

I decide the puppies are being housetrained enough to have their sheepskin back, except, yay, ONE puppy always spoils the bed for the others. I gotta figure out who it is. Maybe its a different one each time, no idea. So all the toys and sheepskin are currently hanging out on a line. I also have one heck of a pile of laundry to run tomorrow.
The forecast this week calls for rain pretty much every day. Sweet. The puppies have definitely outgrown their pen for long periods of time, and I really don't want to expand it out. My one roommate has a pile of plastic I might try to string across the pens so they can go outside still and stay mostly dry.

You would not believe the mess in the morning. I make sure they play and potty around 11 and then they sleep through the night now (happy happy happy!) but upon rising, the place is stinky as heck. Poops and urine-soaked potty areas are so fun. They are getting to be very high maintenance at this stage. I don't know how I'll manage to keep them nice for another three weeks.
The Fury has decided that vigilance outside the pen is just as good, thankyouvery much. The walls are low and she jumps out quite easily. Kathy Warren asked how I was going to keep her in - we all know how little Fury enjoys being penned. So far, so long as she spends most of her time out there, I don't care if it's in or out of the pen.

Day 35 - Stacked photos

So on my website, I talk about how I really did this litter for one purpose - to perpetuate solid cattle dogs and strong working ability. But one must remember that while I believe that this should be the Aussie's primary purpose, and the primary thought in your mind when breeding (again, this is *my* belief, no knocking other's opinions), I also have this goal of one day being a breeder judge for conformation. I started out as a conformation person - my first dog was just a couple points from his championship when he died. My second dog wasn't doing anything so I neutered him. My current dog, Fury, isn't so bad except she's tiny and she has a butterfly nose (okay, quick quiz, dear readers - what's that mean?) . . . . ......................................... if you said pink spots, you'd be right! Anyway, these two faults (size isn't really a fault, but trust me, it affects you) keep me from trying Fury out at certain shows. But I have handled a lot of dogs to their championships. What I need is to breed a couple.

On that note, I don't think anyone's going to have a butterfly nose at this point. They all have plenty of pigment where it counts, maybe Daca is cause for concern, but even then, she's got liver all along the top and that seems to fill in pretty healthily.

Anyway, in this day and age, how do you do that with working dogs? They really do look very different from conformation judges and we all get used to a certain look. I've seen judges put up nice working dogs and I believe in it. So if I stumble across a couple homes who are willing to give it a shot? SWEET! If they are local to California, I may just steal some puppies for weekends. I already have that deal with at least one home. You can be dang sure I will be doing it with Yishai's puppy (he says he is all about agility and stock handling, but no way is he doing the dog show thing).

So, by popular request, we have stacking photos. I actually did two sessions. They were taken by non-dog folks not familiar with my camera. The puppies were not into it. I would love people's opinions. I have not evaluated a litter for a very long time. Puppies are haaaaaaaaaaard.

First up, we have Miss Daca.

I think Daca is going to end up just like Fury. Same markings, same ear set, same head shape. She's got a nice, solid front, but she's a little light in bone.
I think she has some decent rear angulation compared to some of the other puppies in the litter, again, something Fury's got. I was actually running with the Furball today and she ran through a puddle and we singletracked the whole way home. Very efficient gait, Fury has. Sometimes I feel like Daca's a bit square, though - and I don't think she looks like that here in the photo. I don't know if it's the shorter neck or her coloring or what. Like her topline and neck arch.

NONE of the puppies stood for the rear shots. Anyway, looks pretty good to me.

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And then we have Mr. Earthquake, Terra Moto.

Motzi is my bet for a versatility dog right now. He's got some decent bone to him, nice masculine head with nice ears (I think they'll end up the traditional triangle set). Deep chest. He's running a little uphill right now, but remember, they're five weeks old.

Rear - I think it's nice.
Lean much? Nice toe arch and he's nice and straight, but not too much. Love his masculine head.

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And Mr. Tara Reid:

Poor Reidipoo did not get very good shots. If you imagine him straightening up, he really has some nice, functional angulation, good croup angle, solid topline, good neck arch - though I think it's a little short. That's a solid rear.
"I lick you?" Solid front, thankyouverymuch. Also - triangle ears, I betcha.

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Fie Dog:Dang, she was hard to pose. Did not want to stand up for the life of me. I know that ear looks white, but it's not. Kinda straighter on the angulation, this one. Also, pretty lightly built. Takes after Mom. Nice topline, nice neck.

Rear! The rears on this litter are quite nice. Not surprised, though. Working dogs tend to have nice rears - they have to rock back and such so I think sometimes performance naturally selects for that. I love watching Fury from behind.

I'm pretty much manipulating her in this shot. She's not that easty-westy. Love the head.

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Tara Firma - the little Dirt Dawg!She's got some bone to her, this one. And she's also running a little uphill according to her growth pattern. Not so worried about it. Also one of the better angulated puppies, I think. Nice rear. Surprise.

Nice front, if a bit wide here. Also like her head. Ears are smallish like Daca's, probably will have Fury's ear set.

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And it's not the last, it's the first: Optimus PrimeNice topline, a little straighter on the angulation, but not so much that I'd say it was "straight." She's very balanced at this stage.

Butts! Like.

Good front. Like! Love her expressions. "I hate this." I think she'll end up with traditional triangle ears, too.

Hey look, a bonus entry - headshots~

My buddy, Eric Varley, comes to say hello.

Who wants darling puppy headshots? I do! I do!

Firma.
Fie (she's wet, yes, and lower down you'll see why).
Daca.
Optimus Prime.
Reiderton.
Moto.
So, Optimus Prime went by the water pan when Fie was drinking and knocked it over. I wish I had a photo of Fie's indignant look. This is after that when she was shaking off.

Man, it sucks to be a soaked puppy.

Firma and Fie going at it. This is her scary face.

Fie says, "Yo, you ain't fooling anyone. Chiiiiiiiiiiill."

Day 34 - Grassy grass

So no photos today - I basically kicked them out all day and brought them in at sunset, and then had to go to a staff meeting. Next Monday I officially start working again as an English prof. I need to see if my roommates are amenable to moving them inside at sunset, but I don't think it should be a problem. And even then, Yishai has offered to split litter duties whenever I need it, so they won't be left out in the cold/rain either way.

They seem to spend all day sleeping in the Dogloo. I need to get them some boxes and stuff to play around in, but I hope they eventually take to exploring again. They do it when I'm around, but not otherwise. Poor Fury is trapped in there - I can hear her whining all day about it. :) She gets breaks, though. Where I live it's very unlikely anything large enough to want to mess with the puppies would be around.

They totally destroyed the ground covering, so I will be going out to replace that today sometime. It would appear that this week is when they start getting messy. I think their increased consumption of dog food as made their poop unpalatable to Fury so she stopped cleaning up. That was both a blessing and TOTALLY nasty. Fury's normally nice white teeth were kind of poo-stained, and let's not talk about her breath. I am spending a fortune in greenies.

Stuff is still coming out of the Fury, too. People NEVER tell you this stuff. My roommate and I were hiking and a long tendril of reddish mucous fell out of her, which she stopped to clean up. This then set us on a whole discussion of things they never tell you about pregnancy, like about how many women wear adult diapers for a while for precisely the same reason. Awesome.

Chris and his esteemed girlfriend will be coming by today to do our next photo shoot, we all hope outside happens - except I still think it may be too muddy to mow, so kind of messy looking. We'll see.

I also probably need to do "stacked" puppy shots, although being a working litter, I wonder if that's dumb for me to do. Conformation-brain is fighting with stockdog-brain right now. :)

Day 33 - First trips outside

So I gave up and couldn't help myself. I don't like how big they've got in relation to their living space.

"Come on guys, we gotta get out of here!"

The puppies are actually choosing to sleep on the linoleum instead of in the crate sometimes, maybe because they are not feeling the need to make piles any longer.

The sun was up and they were all clamoring for some excitement so I said, "To heck with this" and built them a run outside. I'm quite pleased with it.

I need to get some things for them to poke around with in there, but so far so good. Fury is not super pleased with being stuck outside with them, but the fences are low and she could jump if she wanted to. Not yet.

Pardon the yard, it looks kind of hellish after weeks of rain and neglect. I can't mow it yet.

Putting them out there was pretty fun. I have this screen that kind of lives outside because I don't know what to do with it in the new house, and they all hid behind that at first, whining and poking their heads out occasionally.

At first, Fury is there to make them confident, and then she decided she wanted to go inside instead.

This is all very new. We will stay here, thankyouverymuch.

Well, hmm, not so bad.

Something smells interesting.

Yeah, still scary.

They'd bop around at the doors and gates (though I am not sure how they know what a gate is for and you could hear the plaintive "let me back inside" whines. Eventually our braver puppies explored enough to be confident to come over to me and have a puppy party in my lap.

Our brave explorer puppies.

It's funny how their personalities are really showing now - Reid, Moto, and Firma had no problem trucking the ten feet over to me to sit with me and keep exploring. That's their MO in the house, too. The other three girls are a lot more cautious. In the end, all six little guys were sitting in breeder-mom's lap happy as clams. As you can see, I took oodles and oodles of photos of them.

Fie (I think her best side).

Lap puppies.

Fie and Oppie.

Oppie.

Reid in his classic pose. Sittin' and thinkin'.

Daca.

Fie's other side. She and Daca are totally different dogs depending on what side you look at. What do you feel like, big spots, or little ones?

Daca's other side: would you like stripes or to see my impression of a solid red?

Daca, Fie, and Oppie. We'll try this gate, maybe that's how we'll get in.

Daca's red bi impression side.

Reid and Firma, "Let's make a break for it - she's not that far away!"
Moto leads the charge.
Reid, thinkin'.

Firma!

Dude, where'd Mom go again? Safety in numbers!Yeah, I don't trust this.

On that note, it's also cool because I am starting to see their instinct coming out a lot - Firma consistently works dogs she's playing with wide, checks their eye and then chases them parallel to head them off. Last night Fie started playing with Laura (my roommate)'s dog, Rex, and she was clearly heading him. Daca has this intense play drive but is so sweet. Reid and Optimus are both more of sitter and watchers. They think about stuff. Then they act. Moto is a cute guy, he is also a bit of a wuss - or so I like to tease. He screams bloody murder when something happens that's uncomfortable (ie, he bashes his head into a fence when playing or I grab him by the scruff to stop him from something), but he recovers pretty well. Fie and Firma are always sparring and making the most horrible sounds!

And in other news, someone asked about my feeding - this is kinda funny. As I said, I suspected that Fury would likely wean her puppies early, and she seems to be doing that. Unless she is really full, if a puppy tries to suck, she plays "bite the head with them." Basically she gently tries to redirect them into play, but under no circumstances will she let them suckle. My method has been to let them suckle, Fury gets over it, and out comes the puppy food. If I think they need extra nourishment, I give them some warm water with the kibble and they go to town. If they're obnoxious or need something to do, I just give them hard kibble so they have to really work at it and occupy themselves. Puppies still thriving, no one seems hungry, and it's going well.

Pups at the bar.

"Oh, check it out, Mom came back out! Soup's on!"

Moving the pups out to the yard has also had a positive effect on their housetraining. When they come back inside, most of them opt to use the ground cover I've bought. It's looking pretty sick. Hopefully with them outside all day it will get a nice break and recover. I don't mind buying more, but . . . hey, I was raised frugally.

Super special bonus!