One week to go!

Paika still has one more week to go with her pregnancy. The pictures show her with Mielikki, who is inviting Paika to play. Paika's temperament is solid. Even though playing with Mielikki is not what she wants to do, she finally gives in.

Paika is getting big

Paika has 9 more days to go in her pregnancy, and she is getting big. It is actually not obvious from the above pictures, but now her belly almost touches the ground. She looks bigger than last year when she had 5 puppies. I hate to guess and be wrong, but I think that we might be having 7 puppies?

No puppies for Keena

We took Keena to a vet to check how many puppies she is carrying. There are none, so it looks like we will have just one litter this year out of Paika and Moose (due around April 6).

I am not sure what happened with Keena, she looked pregnant at 6 weeks, and this is when we started to increase her food portions. Now, apparently, she is just fat. We probably bred her too late as we were waiting for lab results. She was diagnosed with lyme and anaplasmosis earlier this winter and was treated with doxycycline. We were double checking that it was OK to breed her (and it was), but we must have missed a right date.

Unfortunately and coincidentally, this is the third "missed" breeding in working wires that I know about this spring. I hope it's the last one.

Now Keena is going to go on a diet and will be running rabbits instead of licking puppies' bottoms.

We expect two new litters of wirehaired dachshunds really soon!

In 2012 we are going to have two litters of puppies.

Keena came in heat on January 15, and we bred her to FC Tom vom Linteler-Forst on January 26 and 27. She should be delivering around March 28. If everything goes well (and with dog breeding you never know) pups would be going to their new homes around June 2-10.

Keena is almost seven years old, and this is going to be her last litter. She was examined by a vet prior to the breeding, had her full blood panel and x-ray done, and everything looks very good. She was declared to be in superb health and got a green light from our vets for breeding.

This is going to be our "T" litter.  Tommy does not have the gene for short coat so we expect all the pups to have wirehaired coats.

This picture was taken on March 20. It does not look like Keena carries a lot of puppies, I would say 3 or 4. We have an appointment with a vet on Monday, March 26, to check how many puppies she will be having.

Paika came in heat on January 24, and we  bred her on February 3 and 5. This is a repeat breeding of our very successful S-litter sired by FC Nurmi v Moosbach-Zuzelek (aka Moose) owned by Chuck Collier, MI. Paika's pups from this litter will have "U" names. Paika does not have the gene for short coat so we expect all the pups to have wirehaired coats.

These pictures were taken on March 20. Paika still has more than two weeks to go in her pregnancy. My estimate is that she will have 5-6 puppies, but of course I might be wrong!