Small Miracles

One puppy in the litter needs no ribbon. I've decided to call her Mini. She is now 10 ounces - up a whole ounce from birth - and her siblings average 24 ounces - so they are up an average of 8 ounces. I'm not sure if it's because they are growing fast or she is growing slowly but they are leaving her in the dust. Despite that difference she is holding her own and is as vigorous and lively as the rest of them. I'll keep an eye on her but as long as she is gaining and active I'll leave her to her own devices. The entire litter seems to be working in relays for feeding and Leeloo is a very contentious mother who is producing gallons of milk. I also noticed Mini is able to wiggle under and get access to the buried sections of the milk bar.  Miss Purple there was the first one born and then her sister Mini was 3 hours behind.

She is by far the most popular puppy. Everyone wants Mini. If you want Mini you may have to prepare yourself for disappointment because there is only one of her. Remember, she is small, she has a little kink in her tail and she has a lot of white. I can't wait to see how that grows out - I have had a soft spot for white since Leeloo entered my home.

I can't think how she ended up so small given the size of her parents and siblings but perhaps she was stuck in some corner of the uterus, maybe jammed up against the pelvis and she just didn't get the room to grow like everyone else did. It may also account for the kink in her tail! Puppies like Mini don't always thrive, sometimes they get to a few weeks and fade for some reason. Maybe she's small because internally she is not quite right and as she grows the problems might become too much for her little body to overcome. Only time will tell.

It's hard not to get attached to such a little baby - habitually we tend to root for the underdog and in this litter, she's it. I can say with absolute certainty that if she survives and makes it to 8 weeks, she will be beyond adorable. Remember also that smaller dogs tend to be busier so if you are hoping for Mini be prepared for a smart little girl who will need lots of activity. For now though let's all just put our thoughts into helping this little Miniature Ridgeback grow.

To Comfort You

Seven of the puppies are now officially 24 hours old. Making it through those first few hours is important and given how strong and fat everyone is at the moment I have high hopes. Two puppies have a few more hours to go before they will be a day old but since they are fat and happy too, I have no concerns.
I tried to get some sleep last night which was made difficult by Leeloo's insistence that if a puppy got more than her leg length away from her, I had to wake up to poke it back into the pile. Leeloo just lies there with the other 8 puppies and whines until she sees I am coming to the rescue. She pointedly looks at the puppy and then at me and when I put the puppy where it belongs she relaxes. Leeloo has me trained very well.

I was woken at 3am to a lot of fussing. The puppies were extremely restless and Leeloo would not stop cleaning them, flipping them over, re-arranging them and generally preventing them, and me, from sleeping. I got up, let her outside, cleaned the whelpingg box, made her a meal, and let her in. She ate quickly and then settled back with the puppies but she still wouldn't relax. I was worried she was experiencing eclampsia or something similar so I took her temperature (which was normal), spoke to her calmly and considered a call to the vet. I was loathe to pack everyone up and drive anywhere considering there was freezing rain pelting the window. I noticed she was having minor body shivers so I thought about what comforts Leeloo most when she does not have puppies. I grabbed a small blanket and tossed it over her and the fussing brood. In less than a minute she was fast asleep as were the puppies.

Sometimes the simplest things are the most important - for Leeloo, the binkie is her safe little den.

Cloud 9

Today was the day Leeloo's last litter of puppies landed on planet earth. She went into stage one labour last night at about 8pm and things progressed from there. She had her first puppy at 4am, Miss Orange, who is the biggest puppy I've ever had at 19 oz, and then spent the next 3 hours worrying me into an early grave. She fussed, contracted, fussed, nested, whined, contracted on and on for hours.

She insisted her one and only puppy be in the whelping box with her at all times despite her proclivity for tearing up newspaper and digging. I kept an eye on Miss Orange and wondered what on earth the puppy in the chute was playing at with all the delays. I was worried it was an overlarge puppy that was jamming up the works since the first was such a big girl and puppy #2 might require an intervention. Given her actual size I can't imagine what the delays were for - the first puppy born is the one with the ribbon and the puppy who took 3 hours to arrive is on the right. Ribbon puppy is 19oz and no ribbon is 9oz.

It was 7am before that miniscule trouble-maker popped out. She is the smallest puppy I've ever had born in my house and less than half the size of her siblings. What she lacks in size she makes up for in determination and even now is fighting for her fair share. She has the most white of all the brood with one white sock which extends up her leg to her white patch. I always wanted one of those! Her cousin London would be proud. Check out the difference in size compared to my hand.

After the teeny weeny puppy everyone else came in fairly regular intervals which allowed me time to make coffee and get the first of many loads of laundry on the go.

Leeloo foiled me twice by presenting the world with a puppy moments before I re-entered the room but now that she is an old champ at this they were in her very capable paws. I just cleaned them off and dried them with Leeloo looking on like "I got this, you go have your coffee."

At 10:30am we stopped at 7 with 6 girls and 1 boy and I cleaned out the whelping box, gave Leeloo a snack, had something to eat, downloaded the photos and prepared to relax with babies for the rest of the day.

This is what a litter of seven looks like. Nice and easy, not a lot of work, simple to manage and just the right 'going away' number for Leeloo.

At 4pm I was working on the computer when suddenly I hear behind me an extremely unbecoming noise from Leeloo. I turn to see her giving birth to another puppy. I grabbed a small towel and gently grasped the puppy to pull it out fully expecting it to be dead. He was quite the opposite. Kicking and quickly snorting the fluid out of his nose he proclaimed that it's better to be late than to have to be removed from your mother's emergency exit. It was now 4pm and a clear 5 1/2 hours after the previous puppy had been born. I was, in a word, astounded. I had certainly palpated and although I thought I could feel some lumps I am no vet and have little to no experience squashing around a dog's tummy to see if she has any puppies left. Based on Leeloo's previous hours of behaviour I had guessed she was done. She'd had some contractions but at some point she expelled a placenta which I had accounted for the contractions. Mr Green knows better.

Now we were at a comfortable 8 puppies and I was very happy with that but Leeloo had one more trick up her sleeve, so to speak. Again, with little to no warning, she had a massive contraction and out popped yet another puppy. This time it was a big red wheaton girl who stated upon exit that a lady may be fashionably late. She was late by a clear 6 hours but whose counting? Miss Lime is number 9 and that makes our real and actual final tally. 

All of the puppies are perfectly show ridged which really surprises me since the last litter they were not. There's some extra white, a couple with rear dewclaws and like last litter most will be either a wheaton or a red wheaton with only one male, Mr Green, being a light wheaton. Can't wait to see how he turns out; however, now is the time to just let them grow and hope, as ever, that everyone makes it to 8 weeks. This is what 9 puppies looks like with their extremely capable and trustworthy mother.

An Inconvenient Truth

Ask anyone who knows me, I'm a tell-it-like-it-is and if-you-ask-my-honest-opinion-you're-going-to-get-it type of person. I have already categorically stated I'm a bad liar so if my opinion seems hurtful it's not because I want to be mean, it's because diplomacy is very hard for me to pull off. If I don't believe what I'm saying I can't imagine why anyone else would.


The same philosophy applies to my dog breeding practices. I do what I want because these are my dogs and I can't deny anyone else that right. If you own a dog that you've bred, responsibly or not, then that's your gig. However, if a person writes about their kennel in a way which misrepresents not only who they are but what breeding dogs is really like, I am certainly free to comment.


What I can't hold with is candy coating, and that's a difficult thing for me to say considering how much I love candy. Dog breeding is freakin' hard dammit. Anyone who posts about how much the dam loves her puppies has never had to put an expen around the whelping box so she doesn't abandon them for hours, or sit holding her down at 1am, 3am, 5am and 7am so she will feed them, or have to stop her from killing them as they are born, or has never come home to a dead puppy because 'loving momma' has laid on one and crushed it. I can categorically state, after decades of being around brood bitches: They. Do. Not. Love. Their. Puppies. Bitches act purely on instinct and that instinct is not always to care for their brood. If you are anthropomophizing a bitch to such an extent it means you are deceiving your audience and insulting the trials and tragedies other breeders have experienced.

When I write about the puppies I'm expecting, it will be the bald truth. They are a lot of work but I don't mind it because I love my dogs and what I do for them it doesn't really seem like work. What I won't write is how the puppies are magical angels, because they're not. Or that Leeloo loves them, because she - like most bitches - does not. Once the puppies are born Leeloo will act on pure, carnal instinct and I won't see my Darling Bubbalicious again until the last puppy has left my house.

I think anyone who only ever writes about how great the puppies are, how much the bitch loves her babies, and what a wondrous experience dog breeding is, does the dog fancy a serious disservice, and illustrates blatant ignorance and inexperience.  It belittles the heart-ache, hard work, disappointment, irritation, despair, blood, sweat and tears that hundreds of responsible breeders go through in order to plan and raise a litter of puppies.

I write about the truth of it - the truth can be funny, sad, heart breaking, emotional, angry, despairing, joyful, uplifting, delightful and stark. Sometimes I've chosen to restrict or edit the things I post, mostly because they're private matters or I'm simply not ready to disclose the information; however, it's never been in the name of deception or masking the truth. There are just some things only I get to know about my life.

I choose to write a public blog about my experiences with the dogs and that means I have a responsibility to remove the rose colored glasses. People should know the truth of what it took for me and Leeloo to get a puppy to 8 weeks old so someone could provide it a loving forever home. I started this blog mostly so I could look back at my experiences and learn from them, so potential homes could watch their puppies grow and so people could know what it's like to live with a Ridgeback. This blog is more than 4 years old now and loyal readers have been through a lot of shit with me. There may be a copy-cat blog out there that attempts to imitate, but they can never duplicate, because I don't live in a world of rainbows and unicorns - I live in a stable, normal reality where bad shit happens, things irritate me, and plans don't always pan out. I write because it's what I'm compelled to do. 

Fat Albert

As of tomorrow I am on Puppy Watch. Leeloo isn't actually due until March 16 which is next Friday but because her last litter pre-labour started 5 days early I'm not taking any chances. Leeloo is mortified that this is happening all over again and frankly I feel very guilty for putting her through this again. I have made many promises this is the last time and if she understood, I'm sure she would thank me. I've never been pregnant but what I have seen of friends, family and dogs, it seems like it just sucks. The final trimester of pregnancy, in dogs anyway, is grotesque, undignified, uncomfortable, annoying and as far as I can tell a big fat hassle for the animal experiencing it. They don't like it and I can't say I blame them. I look at my svelt and  perfectly beautiful baby Cora and think "Do I ever want to do that to her body?" Time will tell.

Back to the mother of the hour - I sort of anticipate her to go into pre-labour tomorrow night with puppies arriving in the middle of the night on Monday. I can't be sure this is how it will play out but from now on I am checking her temperature 3 times a day instead of just 2 (per undignified) and I took time off work tomorrow to stay home with her. I'm reasonably sure that she won't have the puppies tomorrow but I just know how the day will go - I'd be at work with a perfectly calm exterior but for 7 hours, in my head, I'd be freaking out. I prefer to just save myself the anxiety and stay home.

Most of the time she is sleeping, she doesn't want to go for walks anymore and when we do she just meanders and looks resigned to this ridiculous outing when she could be home sleeping. The puppies are kicking up a storm in there, eager to make their appearance I guess. I routinely take a moment to give Leeloo a scratch all over her body with an old spaghetti ladle (you know, the ones with the 'fingers') since she loves it and she can't scratch properly anymore.

There's Cora's jamming her long legs into her mother's tummy. Perhaps she is saying STAY IN THERE to her siblings since once they arrive, for a little while a least, she will not be the Puppy of the House. Never mind Cora, you will always be my Baby Booble.

Stick It

Last week the dogs and I headed out to my friend (and co-worker) Shelley's 40 acre spread to have a romp in the snow. Mostly they stayed near the house which acted as a wind break and that was just fine with me! Cora started off the festivities in her usual manner.

Esme wasn't far behind with her typical shenanigans and although it may be hard to tell, her head is on the right hand side of the photograph.

Shelley was kind enough to dig out a stick and Cora spent the bulk of the walk teasing Esme with it. Cora was extremely proud of this stick and well she should be, it was a great stick as far as sticks go.

There was no end to the running back and forth through the snow. Almost to the point of boredom - for me, not the dogs. If it had been a little warmer we'd have been there longer I'm sure.

What's this? Cora with a stick? What a surprise. She's so cute. Look at those silly ears.

Esme never ever tires of chasing the Ridgebacks. It's some sort of Puli programming that won't let her quit. She must burn hundreds of calories every day chasing these dogs, trying to get them to do what she wants. It will be a lifetime of try and will almost certainly never end in success. Never mind Esme, I appreciate the effort, especially if it means tiring Cora out too!

There's that stick again. I'm so proud of Cora, she is maturing into a beautiful dog who is fit, sound and athletic. Now, if only I could pry that stick from her naughty puppy jaws ...

Spring Breakers

I've been rather slack in the updates for the past week although I did have new photos to post. I'm just a slacker which is no excuse but it's all I have. Boy wants to know if you accept his apology. Well, do you?

Cora, like any bitch, doesn't care what your opinion is, she just wants to have FUN! And fun she has whether it's annoying the crap out of me at home or tearing across the wasteland after her Daddy Boy - when fun is on the menu Cora is ordering the works.

Daddy Boy happily obliges. Cora is getting big enough now she can almost keep up with monster legs. She will likely never be as fast as he is on a straightaway but he will never beat her in agility.

Still, fun is fun and spending quality time playing with your Daddy is high on the list of Things To Do Every Day.

I haven't mentioned it on the blog but if you've been to my website recently you'll know that Leeloo is pregnant and expecting in just over a week. This will be my last litter for several years while I concentrate on showing so I hope it's a good one!

Leeloo is treating this pregnancy just like the last one except this time she knows why she is so miserable. Based on her size she doesn't have as many as last time and I am hoping for a maximum of 8 puppies as an easy send-off for her breeding career.

If you can't see it this is an Esme grin, what you don't know about Esme is hidden behind that cheesy smile.