Lucky Thirteen

Well the puppies are 13 days old today! It seems like it was just yesterday that they were born and already they are up on all fours attempting to walk around.They only manage 2 or 3 steps before they roll over and have to start again. The little male is the smartest of everyone, he just lies there and barks and whines and his mother comes right over to him so he doesn't need to exert much energy. Tipper has decided that her blanket which traveled to every dog show with her should be wadded up around the babies, so it must feel like Mt Everest when they are trekking over the the lumps that she has created. At night I find her and the babies huddled under the blanket. Her sense of smell is amazing because she knows where everyone is!

A recent slideshow with pictures from April 3rd through today April 6th. 

One week old

Here are these beautiful babies at one week old. It is amazing how strong they have gotten and how big! There noses are turning black even as we speak!

8th wonder of the world

As I sit here watching the miracle of life playing out in the whelping box, I have more questions than answers. It amazes me how nature and nurture work hand in hand to allow these puppies to survive. How does a new mother have the instinct to clean these babies, gently pick them up and despite complete exhaustion not sit or lie on them? Never having smelled their mother before how do these blind deaf minutes old puppies manage to seek out their mother for sustenance?
My babies are safe and warm with a mother who is well fed and yet my thoughts wander to some of the horror stories I hear about where homeless mother give birth under cars, in shelters and in the wild alone and cold. It breaks my heart and angers my soul that people are not responsible for their animals. Or worse think they can breed dogs and relinquish all responsibility as soon as those puppies leave the premises.
As these babies lie in the whelping box I can't help but wonder what will their lives be like? How can anyone watch puppies curled up and cooing in the box and consider turning them into fighting dogs, or bait dogs or even abusing such an animal? What is it in a human that turns them so evil?
For a person such as myself the 9 weeks from conception to birth is long and fretful. he first few weeks the question of the day is, will we have puppies because despite the millions of unwanted dogs in the country when we want a litter it sometimes doesn't happen!
As my bitches belly starts to swell my mind turns to all the things that could go wrong during labor. For some reason puppies like to come in the middle of the night. Another question not answered. Does the cover of darkness make the bitch feel safer delivering her pups?
As delivery day unfolds, the bitch becomes increasingly nervous and as the actual arrival of the first puppies she begins to pant and push and within moments she has delivered a puppy, severed the umbilical cord and eaten the placenta. Nature at it's best. When the puppies are all delivered does the mother want to  move them away from the birth site because of the scent or does she just want a cleaner area? More questions. As the days pass and the puppies continue to grow I still can't sit by the whelping box and not  be amazed by the eighth wonder of the world the miracle of birth and survival.

Two days old and I must say they are adorable. Everyone doing well and Tipper has proved to be amazing mother.

Puppy Slide Show

Perception

Yesterday I went with my brother to look at Aussie puppies. The woman who owned the litter is a member of the Australian Shepard Club of America and she is also a breeder judge. ASCA is not a member of the AKC.
She has been breeding Aussies for more than 8 generations so she could be considered "a crazy dog person" as my  brother so affectionately calls me.
While we were driving in the car my brother mentioned that she allots 2 hours to each potential puppy person. He confided in me that he couldn't imagine it would take 2 hours to look at puppies. Boy was he wrong!
The breeder was a wealth of information and discussed with us the mentoring process she had been through, what she put the most importance on when she was judging( the first thing she asks herself could this dog herd) and described in detail each personality and why this puppy would or wouldn't be a good fit.

As we discussed the standard of the Aussies I made a comment that both standards had a lot of similarities  and she corrected me by saying, "oh no the Aussie has a very nice layback of shoulder , never a straight front like the dalmatian."
For a minute I was taken a back and then explained that the Dalmatian should have a nice layback of shoulder  with the upper arm almost as long as the shoulder blade. Her next comment was well that's not what I am seeing in the ring when I attend AKC shows. and I had to admit she was right.
We have way too many dogs being shown with bad fronts, whether they have short upper arms resulting in straight fronts, elbowing out, or narrow fronts more and more of them are being seen in the show ring and this is creating the perception that the front should be  straight because so many of the dogs have a straight front.
The Dalmatian Club of America has a illustrated explanation of the standard. I suggest everyone check it out.
I would be the first person to admit that there is no perfect dog but every responsible breeder should be reading the standard and asking themselves can this puppy I want to show do the job it was bred for? Can it coach for 20 miles a day? and the answer is, if it is straight in the front or heavy in bone NO.