Family Portrait

Pebbles (Atchafalaya Be A Rebel) is getting to be a big girl now. She gets a lot of her nature and colour (including the neck spot) from her dad (Sputnik) and seems to get her coat length from her mum (Mallie). Hot weather is no problem by the looks. Pebbles is not quite as active as some of her litter mates, but still seems to have a bit of drive. She doesn't mind relaxing around and having a nice long belly rub either.

You can easily see what each of the guys are thinking in the photo here. Sputnik: I love you mum. Pebbles: Hey dad! Mallie: There is somewhere outside I really need to be...

Mothers Day Puppies

Well, Mallie has popped. She was looking huge and now we know why. We weighed her recently to see how much she had gained. We did the math. The prediction was for 8-10 puppies. We were hoping we were wrong.

Well, she started at 6pm on Mothers Day. First pup took a while to get out and it was a big pup at 380 grams. That is usually the biggest pup size in a litter. Sputnik, the father of these guys, was biggest in his litter at just 340g. But in this litter, 340 was the smallest. So number two pup was 340g, but all the rest were bigger. The biggest pups were 400g and there were two of those, with another at 390g.

And they just just kept coming. In all there were nine big pups by midnight. They were all black and white, unlike their mum, and they were all big with an average weight of 376grams and a total weight of almost 3.5kg. That is like a human baby size! No wonder Mallie looked so big with 9 huge pups inside. And all very active and healthy so far, unlike our last difficult litter...

Easter egg puppy...

As it's near Easter time this seemed a good time to announce our little easter egg puppy. He is gold on the outside and chocolate on the inside. Now we haven't actually cut him open to check, and we don't really have any plans on doing that. But his nose is brown and that's a hint. Of course his parents are both chocolate, and that's a bigger hint. So this little guy is genetically a bbee which means he is both genetically chocolate and red (or brown and yellow to be a bit more precise).

His name is Teal'c and he is an unexpected addition to the household, but when we saw him we knew he was a specially little guy. He has settled in really well and seems to get on well with everyone. He loves Bella and gets on really well with his new big brother Sputnik. And Sputnik thinks he is a cool little guy as well, and they play well together. Sputnik has always been something of a puppy himself.

Happy Birthday Ashley...

Well, it's been a year since Ashley and her littermates were born. Friday the thirteenth it was, and not a great night for puppies. Three of the litter died over the next few days, with Ashley, all 140 grams of her, hanging on at the edge for several weeks.

But she was a tough determined little pup, and a year later she is a healthy and happy 14kg. Always on the move, and always looking for mischief of course, but that's what puppies are made for, right?

And since hitting 4 weeks, Ashley has been healthy as a horse and never looked back. She loves her friend in crime, Bella, and loves her cake, and anything else she can get hold of. She certainly eats well, but quickly burns off the calories. There is no excess fat on Ashley, that's for sure.

Abby and Ashley update...

Abby is healing amazingly well. In the last month her wound from the dingoes has shrunk to a fraction of what it was. The vets did have surgery in mind if needed, but it looks like it won't be necessary as the skin continues to contract. The opening is now only about 2cm wide at the most now while it had been more like 10cm last month. Now if we can just stop her breaking out again and going walkabout...

Meanwhile her daughter Ashley, also in the picture here, is growing into a nice little dog. Little is the appropriate word as she is way smaller than her siblings, but she is still quite a nice sized little girl, now weighing 13kg. It's a long way from the 140g she was in the first couple of weeks in her life. She still seems a little on the fine side with very little meat on her bones, but then she is a very busy dog. Sarah has claimed her as her next agility dog and so Ashley is now in training for next year and doing well. She has been out socializing with other dogs and being very good. And she loves her crate. I don't think I've ever seen a dog take to a crate so well, but she thinks it's so cool that she can lay there in peace and sleep and chew a bone and such without anyone bothering her at all. I don't think she quite understands why her playmate Bella whines about the crate so much...

Abby vs the dingoes...

Abby (mother of Ashley) has been having a bad week after being attacked by dingoes sometime last weekend. This started out not looking too bad, but now the vet has removed the dead skin leaving a large hole on her rump (which is not shown here). At this stage the vet thinks all will heal just fine, but it doesn't look, or smell, all that great.

Abby, of course, is not all that worried. She has always been tough since we got her as a 5 year old rescue, and she is already looking at ways to escape the yard and go for a wander in the bush again. She isn't all that fussed on the collar, but even that doesn't seem to worry her as much as it would most dogs.

For a complete view of the horrible looking wound as of this date, try clicking here.

Waiting...

If I wait here long enough, they will come. It's the only gate out of the yard, so they ain't gonna get past me. If they go somewhere then I go somewhere. Well, that's the plan anyways.