Watching, walking and talking

The first row of pics show Keena's pups, and the second row pics show Gilda's pups. Puppies are getting more active with every day even though they sleep a lot. They can smell, see, hear, walk and bark. They like to be stroked and petted, and now they can even give wet kisses. I take them out of their whelping box several times a day, handle them individually, let them move and walk/crawl on a different surface such as tiles. From my first observations it seems that there might be only one puppy with a short coat. Some pups with have fuller and longer coats, that's for sure.

Tomorrow we should hear from Jeremiah; hopefully Green puppy is making progress.

Kindness that exceeded all expectations - a big thank you to our vets

I have been worrying about Green boy, who is mothered by Gilda. Developmentally he is not lagging behind, but in the last two days he started to lose weight. He peaked at 550 gr two days ago. I have been trying to bottle feed him but without great results. I could see that he occasionally nursed, and Gilda was cleaning him, but the weight loss was troublesome. Yet, he did not look like a sick puppy at the end of his life.

I knew that I had to do something as watching him deteriorate was not an option. Today I took the pup to our vet. His heart sounds good, and Dr. Baldwin agreed that he does not look like a dying puppy that has to be put down. But the question how we could help him did not have a simple answer. He could be losing in the competition with stronger pups, and most pups in Q and R litters are almost twice his size. He should be able to eat on his own in several days, but he might not make it to reach this milestone if he is getting weaker. Then the solution materialized, and I could not believe my ears. Jeremiah Johnson, who is a vet tech at Cobleskill Veterinary Clinic offered to take the pup home to nurse him back to health. Apparently, this is his passion - saving  puppies and kittens, and he has done it many times. As he said, he likes the challenge. I asked about the compensation, and was told that the only reimbursement Jeremiah wanted was the cost of puppy formula. When I shook my head in disbelief, Dr. Baldwin showed me our folder and said "you have been good to us". Well, we have been clients for 11 years and usually have more than 10 dogs, so I can see his point. Yet, my vets' and especially Jeremiah's kindness exceeded my expectations and certainly warmed my heart. So Green puppy is now in good hands with Jeremiah, and I left the vet without paying a dime. We don't know whether the puppy is going to make it, and I certainly don't believe that puppies with serious problems should be saved. We'll keep you posted about how things develop.

The third week of puppies' lives

Keena's pups turned two weeks old yesterday, and Gilda's pups will do the same this coming Tuesday. This upcoming week will witness more actvity in the whelping boxes and pups will experience many "firsts".

Right now puppies can see and hear some, but their senses are going to improve dramatically. The pups are not steady on their feet yet, but in the upcoming days their mobility will get much better. They will be able to stand and take few steps without falling. They will also start interacting with their siblings and of course, with their moms. Their teeth will start to erupt and interestingly, the timing of the teeth eruption in wires is correlated with the texture of their coats they will have as adults. Pups with shorter, tighter coats will get their teeth first. Pups with longer and softer coats (as adults) will get their teeth a bit later.

In the third week pups are not ready for food supplementation yet, and they will rely on their moms for all the nurishment. And moms will continue to clean their pups' little butts. Keena and Gilda have been eating a lot and their needs for food will increase even further. Since both of them are dealing with large litters, we will be watching for any signs of eclampsia. I have seen this condition just a couple of times, but it was a very scary experience, requiring emergency. We do have oral calcium on hand, just in case. Eclampsia in dogs is different from human eclampsia, and it usually happens when pups are 2-3 weeks old and a bitch has to deal with a large litter. I think it is quite unlikely in Keena and Gilda's case as they have been eating really well, and they do not stay with puppies all the time.  For more info on eclampsia click here.

Keena checks on her pups - video from webcam

I completely forgot hat I have a webcam, which I almost never use. So today I connected it to my computer and aimed it at Keena's whelping box. Even though the box is in my den, it is behind my desk and I don't see it when I work on the computer. I have had a lot of fun with the webcam as now I can watch what is going on inside the box (well... not much...yet). I can also take pics and videos unnoticed. Actually I could do streaming video but I have no idea where to stream to (anybody has nay ideas?). I was surprised with excellent quality of pics and videos, especially in the low light situation. The above video was taken at a low resolution, just to see how it would turn out. As you see Keena made a quick exit after a short checkup on the pups.

The below videoclip was taken at a higher resolution:

Green puppy - first attempts of walking

Keena's puppies have opened their eyes but since they are asleep most of the time this is not easy to show. Also their eyes are very sensitive to bright light so we'll wait with close-ups few more days.

I tend to take more pics of Keena's pups as the lighting in my office is better than in the room where Gilda is with her pups. These are current weights for R-pups:

Females:
White at birth 260 gr, now 580
Pink at birth 300 gr, now 615

Males:
Red at birth 365 gr, now 730
Yellow at birth 280 gr, now 630
Black at birth 335 gr, now 670

Puppies are supposed to double their weight at birth within first ten days so everybody is on target.

Keena's Green male puppy who is mothered by Gilda was today 450 gr and almost doubled his birth weight on day 13. When he gets older we'll take him to a vet to check him out. As far as walking goes, he is the most advance because he is the lightest (everybody else is still crawling). eThe video below shows his first attempts at walking.


To see the clip in other resolutions click here.

Q pups on day 11

Yesterday pups' nails got clipped so they would not scratch Keena. Today I took pics of pups being weighed. Females were:

Boys:

Family ties - all these puppies are related

This picture was sent to us yesterday by Rosi and Anne Bauersachs from Germany whose "L" litter is related to our puppies and is the same age as Gilda's litter. We wrote about this coincidence few days ago. From Anne's letter it looks like everything is going well with Ilena's puppies. Anne said : "Today you wrote about supermoms. We know what you mean because we also have one - she loves her puppies over all."

There are few more pics taken yesterday of our puppies.

Close-ups of R-puppies (Joeri x Gilda)

Q-puppies (Joeri x Keena)

Supermoms rule!

I consider Gilda and her daughter Keena Supermoms; Elli, Keena's grandmother was another Supermom. What do I mean by this term? You start with moms that whelp with ease and have excellent mothering instincts. They clean their babies, take care of them really well and they have plenty of milk. They love their puppies, and spend extra time with them. Sabina, Gilda's mother, was not like that. She did minimum that she could get away with. Below is the picture of Gilda's whelping box this morning. It was spotless, there was nothing to clean.

Keena's puppies turned one week old yesterday. I took their weights and they are:

Male Green at birth 230 gr, now 375 gr (he is growing more slowly than the rest so we are keeping eye on him; otherwise he seems to be fine)

Male Red at birth 230 gr, now 405

Male Navy at birth 250, now 510

Male Blue at birth 300, now 560

Female Pink at birth 340, now 590

Female Yellow at birth 295, now 510

Female White at birth 330, now 650

Female Lime at birth 250, now 510

Female Orange at birth 230, now 515
 

Puppies will opening their eyes when when they are around 10 days old. Right now their eyelids are sealed. They can't hear any sounds either, but they can certainly smell. They know how to find their mother pretty quickly.

All is well in the whelping boxes

Things are going really well with Gilda and Keena's pups, but yesterday we had to do some adjustments. As you know Keena was caring for 9 puppies and Gilda for 5. I caught Keena several times carrying Green boy around in her mouth. At one time she put him in her own bed (see picture), the other time she placed him on the blanket. I see this behavior occasionally in our females and I really don't know the meaning of it. Sometimes a mom may choose a special puppy to give him attention one-on-one. I remember many years ago when Vamba had a "D" litter. She would persist in picking up Drake, her favorite puppy, and jumping on John's bed, where she would stay with Drake and give him extra attention. It is widely known that some bitches would try to get rid of a defective puppy and try to remove such a pup from their whelping box. In Keena's case, I read her actions in neutral terms. She was putting Green boy in her bed or on the blanket outside the box, but she was not staying with him. She did not act like she was trying to hide him either.  Even though Keena was very careful, I needed her to stop this behavior. Finally I decided to "give" the pup to Gilda. Since Gilda is larger than Keena, and she always produces excessive amount of milk (last year she raised 8 pups and managed to put on weight while doing it), we transferred two pups from Keena to Gilda. The pups are double marked by a different shape of collar and nail polish on their nails so we can always tell them apart from other pups, but this is going to help Keena cope with a huge litter. Also Green boy is safer with Gilda, who never carries pups in her mouth. Gilda had no problem with extra puppies, cleaned them right away and let them nurse.

Gilda stays in her box 100% of the time.

I took a short video of Keena's Red boy, it is not of the best quality but is is quite amusing and shows the pup's acrobatics.

To see the video in different resolution click here.

The birth of R-puppies is followed by a sad loss

Yesterday, on May 25, FC Gilda v Moosbach-Zuzelek whelped six puppies, four boys and two girls. The sire of this litter is FC Joeri vom Nonnenschlag. Our females' cycles are synchronized, and they come in heat almost at the same time. Last year we had two litters four days apart, and the same thing has happened this year.

Gilda's first stage of labor started on May 24, around 5 PM. She started to scratch bedding in the whelping box and pant. She was restless. The following day, around noon, I noticed first contractions.

First puppy, a male (Black collar) was born at 1:05 PM; he weighed 12 oz (335 gr). The second pup was a male too (Yellow) and he was born 15 minutes later. He was 9.8 oz (280 gr). After that there was a long break and the third puppy, a boy, arrived at 3:40 PM. He was smaller at 8.2 oz (230 gr). The fourth male (Red) was born an hour later. He was followed immediately by White female (9.2 oz/260 gr). Last puppy, Pink female was born at 6:50 PM (10.6 oz, 300 gr).

Purple boy was the smallest, and he appeared to be a bit weaker. To make things worse he lost a bit of blood because of the injury he sustained when he was born. Gilda cleaned him vigorously, and she pulled his umbilical cord too strongly. It was a matter of seconds and it was an accident. He appeared to be fine for a while, but today he started to deteriorate. Since we don't believe in taking extreme measures to rescue defective and possibly sick puppies, we let the nature take its course. I fed him several times since he was too weak to nurse, but it did not make any difference.  He was not suffering, did not cry or act uncomfortable. Just faded away and he was gone today by late evening. He stayed with Gilda until the end, and she was very good to him. But in the end when we picked him up she did not protest. This was sad, but unfortunately situations like this are unavoidable when you are a breeder.

The end of short life for Purple boy.

Keena's puppies are four days old

Keena's puppies continue to do very well. For the first two days Keena tried to carry them in her mouth to rearrange them in the whelping box. I did not like it and pups did not like it either. I think that she stopped doing it now that the pups have grown. She stays with the pups in the box most of the time, but this morning she was really happy to get out. When John let her out, she went on a short hunting expedition.

These are pups weights as of the May 26 evening. Sorry that they are in grams, for me it is much easier to compare weights this way than when they are expressed in pounds and ounces:

Male Green at birth 230 gr, now 300 gr

Male Red at birth 230 gr, now 315

Male Navy at birth 250, now 355

Male Blue at birth 300, now 440

Female Pink at birth 340, now 425

Female Yellow at birth 295, now 375

Female White at birth 330, now 460

Female Lime at birth 250, now 350

Female Orange at birth 230, now 345

Q-puppies are one day old but it is Keena who is being pampered

Keena's puppies are one day old. So far so good. Keena is an exceptional mother, and I am sure that the first few days must be very difficult for her. She has to come up with logistics of dealing with so many pups. Elli, who used to have very large litters, usually would divide pups into smaller groups that would be nursing separately. Also the potential problem is that Keena has only 6 fully functional teats.

My approach to puppies is that you you have to have a healthy, well fed, energetic mother, then most likely pups will be OK. If she has good instincts, she will take care of her pups. So today is all about pampering Keena. I make sure that she eats frequent high protein, high calcium meals, and that she drinks quite a bit.Her appetite is very good.  I check her temperature for any signs of infection. With large litters bitches are more prone to metritis, inflammation of uterus. I remember many years ago when Sabina had 10 puppies and developed metritis. We ended up hand feeding all 10 puppies. This is something I want to avoid at all costs, and if there are any signs that her temperature gets elevated significantly, she will be put on antibiotic Clavamox.

Anyway, puppies are doing well, they have not gained much weight since they were born, but this is very typical for newborns. I would be concerned if they started to lose weight but so far that has not happened. I weigh them often, and check if they are hydrated. If they are not, I make sure that I put them on a teat and they nurse.

Keena's whelping box is in my den so I am with her almost all the time. We are expecting another litter within next few days, and I know that by the time Gilda has her puppies, Keena will require less of my attention.

How our Q litter (9 puppies) was born

Today is a good time to resume posting here as we have a new litter of pups.On March 22 Keena (FC Keena v Moosbach-Zuzelek) was bred to FC Joeri vom Nonnenschlag. We did only one mating, and Joeri and Keena were tied for one hour.

Keena's pregnancy was very uneventful. Since she has had two litters before, with seven pups in each litter, we have had some information on what we might expect. In the past her pups were quite big and even though she never had much problem with whelping them, I decided to change her diet this time around. She was fed our dogs' regular diet until her last trimester. This means - Canidae for All Life Stages dry kibble in the morning and Oma's Pride raw mixes in the afternoon. Since Oma's mixes have a lot of ground bone in them, I tried to reduce the content of calcium in the food by adding ground turkey to to the mix. In the last trimester I added one more meal - a dry kibble with a higher content of protein. This protocol seemed to have worked really well.

We knew that Keena was going to have quite a few pups, I thought that the number would be 7 or 8. We did not xray her to verify the number, so we were surprised when she delivered 9 pups in 4.5 hours.

The first pup was delivered at 6:30 this morning, and the last one at 11:05 am. This was the sequence:

1. 6:30 am Male (green) 8.2 oz/230 gr

2. 7:05 am Female (pink) 12.0 oz/340 gr

3. 7:25 am Female (yellow) 10.4/295

4. 7:50 am Male (red) 8.2/230

5. 8:25 am Female (white) 11.6/330

6. 9:10 am Male (navy) 8.8/250

7. 9:25 am Female (lime) 8.8/250

8. !0:20 am Male (blue) 10.6/330

9. 11:05 am Female (orange) 8.2/230

I took some pics at the beginning of whelping, but later things were happening too fast. When Keena and I were done with one puppy, the next one was being delivered. Actually, I have never seen anything like it.

All pups are wild boar, and all their registered names will start with the letter Q. How are we going to come up with NINE Q-names?

Upcoming puppies

We had three litters of pups in 2009, and now the pups are all at least one year old. Our next batch of puppies is due in the last week of May 2010, and we will be sharing our puppy adventures with you here when the pups are born. Then from that time on if we have any stories or reports on the 2009 pups, they will be posted on our main, blood tracking blog. See you there!

Poppy's best friend

Derek, sent a picture of Poppy and Blue (blue heeler), Poppy's best friend. Thank you Derek!

Update on Henry (Grizzly)

Steve Hardee from North Carolina wrote today with a nice update on Henry (Grizzly v Moosbach-Zuzelek)). "Henry had his forth find and second true find last Friday. A friend of mine shot two deer with one shot. The first fell dead and the second was gut shot. Both were does. We weren't sure if he had actually hit a second deer until we put Henry down on the spot. He tracked to her in less than 4 minutes about 125 yds very thick cover. Not too many deer have been taken this year here, too much rain and warm weather. There have not been as many opportunities to track as I would have liked. I have plenty of frozen feet and blood so we will train if nothing else."

Thank you Steve for sharing news on Henry!

Koa recovers his first deer

We were very happy to hear from Chris Surtees from Georgia. His tracking partner is Koa (Grock v Moosbach-Zuzelek), an eight-month-old son of Billy and Gilda.

"I shot a small buck tonight while bow hunting in a special archery hunt area and decide to take a chance and put Koa on the trail. As far as blood goes it was a steady easy track but the terrain the buck made his death run through was another matter.

Koa started out fine for the 25 yards but after entering a large ditch he hung a right and broke off trail. I let him go to see what he was going to do and to my surprise he found an easy way out of the ditch and came back on to the trail. While I struggled to climb out of the ditch Koa jumped back in with me and to add insult to injury he gave me a look of I showed you an easy way out and went back out the ditch his way.

Back on track Koa was moving at a good pace, nose to the ground, weaving in and out of the thick brush. Now we hit the next obstacle, another small flood area the deer ran through. Before I reached the area Koa was in the water trying figure out which way the deer went. Once I arrived he gave me a look of I lost the track. We crossed the flooded area, and I worked Koa up and down the back even though I knew where the trail was. I wanted to see if he would pick the trail up or just take off on a false one.

He locked back on the trail and was off again at a good pace. Koa only had one other issue on this track, and that is when my dad and daughter heard me tell Koa he was close. They moved in on my light and distracted Koa from the track. All it took was for me to tell them to stand still and remain quite until he was on the deer.

I put Koa back on the last blood and he finished the trail in grand fashion. He was extremely excited over the deer and enjoyed his tug on just about every part of the deer. To finish it off he was rewarded with a piece of fresh deer heart.

I could not be more proud of Koa and seeing him prance around the house when we returned home I could tell he was proud of himself."

Great job Koa!

Radar's tracking success

No doubt that the first recoveries by young dogs in their first blood tracking season are going to be very memorable.

I was happy to hear from Rex Marshall from Ohio that Radar (Oak v Moosbach-Zuzelek, a Joeri/Emma son) had a chance to track: "Radar found 2 deer these past 2 weeks, one doe and one 9 point buck! It was really fun and exciting to see him track & to finally find the real deal at the end of the trail. Both tracks were easy. I could follow them both from a standing position & see the blood, but I wanted Radar to track them so he could find a real deer at the end. Both tracks were approx 250-300 yards long. He definitely claimed them at the end--do they ever stop barking?? BTW, yesterday I was called to help track a third deer (buck), but Radar couldn't find that one. Honestly, from the sign I saw, I think the hunter never hit any vital organs and the deer survives today. The arrow must have hit the meaty portion of the upper front leg area cause there was only a spotty blood trail. I haven't introduced Radar to tracking specifically on the interdigital scent gland yet, so was unsure if he was on the right track or not after the blood stopped. He stayed with it for 1.5-2 hours though before we gave up. I'm proud of him for not quitting.."

Poppy's first recovery

Derek Harris called from northern Texas with the news that Poppy found her first deer. The scent line with very little blood was around 400 yards, eight hours old. The deer was bedded and jumped when Poppy got really close. It had to be shot, and luckily Poppy was not concerned about three shots that were fired.

Poppy lives on a ranch, and her best canine buddy is a blue heeler. Derek says that she is fearless.

Thanks Derek for the phone call, and congratulations!

Doc's first deer

Stanley Thrasher from Alabama reported that last weekend was opening weekend for youth hunt. Doc (Pushkin) got his first call to recover a deer. The deer was for a 7 year old his first deer it was an 80lb. doe. the little boy was so happy when doc recovered his deer.

The trail was approx. 2-3 hours old. It was about 75 yards out of the clear cut. It was so thick we had to crawl on knees to get through it. Doc had no problem finding the deer. It took him about 5 minutes to find it after he hit the trail. The first thing he did was latch onto the deer's tail and chewed on it then he would chew on a leg. I got Doc off the deer and asked the man to cut the deer tail off for Doc to have as his trophy. Doc did not want the tail he wanted the deer. As the man pulled the deer past Doc he latched onto the deer. The man was pulling Doc and the deer up the hill. I then took Doc and put him in the truck.

Congratulations to Stanley and Doc!

Roughhousing with Gerti

Chris Barr from Indiana e-mailed us this story:

I thought you could use a funny Gerti story that has nothing to do with tracking. We have a wall that is open on each end that separates our kitchen and living room. Gerti has found it quite amusing to play a cat and mouse game with me around that wall. After a few minutes of dodging and weaving, she’ll finally just start barking and chasing me around the kitchen and through the living room. Well, a week ago last night, while playing this game, I was just hitting my stride, probably on my third lap, when I cracked my left pinky-toe on the doorway as I rounded the corner. I went down as if I’d fallen from a building on my knees and elbows. Well, you can imagine, Gerti thought this was just an addition to a delightful game so she proceeded to run circles under my chest and around my head. Dawn and the kids could hardly stifle their laughter. I finally got up and hobbled to the couch where I iced and elevated it for the remainder of the evening. I didn’t have it x-rayed but am pretty sure I broke it as it’s still very swollen and sore. Gerti must have felt a little sorry for me because she curled up in my lap for the remainder of the night and didn’t make a peep.

If you can visualize that, and you’re like my family, you’ll probably get a pretty good chuckle out of it. The next night when it turned all kinds of purple and blue colors, the kids took pictures of it with their phones to send to their friends.

Lucy (Patti) and her experience on real tracks

John and Jolanta

Just thought I would check in and get you up to date on Lucy's (Patti's) progress. I have been able to get her out on 5 "real" tracks so far. 3 of the 5 I knew where the deer were and had marked the route. The other 2 were blind tracks. She has managed to make it to the end of every track, some with a little more help than others, but we celebrated them all the same. The long and the sort of it is that it appears that her biggest shortcoming is her trainer. Each outing has provided a new experience and I have "learned" many of the lessons that John cautions about in his book. Her tendency is to work quite fast so our top priority right now is getting her to slow down. The only other issue is that she tends to pitch a fit whenever I go hunting and she doesn't get to come along (which isn't a bad thing unless its 4:30 a.m.). The bow season is just starting to pick up so I anticipate having more opportunities to get her out yet this fall. I will keep you posted on how it goes.

Dan

First moose for Gunner

This e-mail; from Guy Marcoux-Filion brought news about Gunner, a six-moth-old son of Billy and Gilda who resides in Quebec:


Hello John,

This story is rather short. Gunner began tracking at the hit site. He stopped at every drop of blood, working very slowly, and as usual he made about a 20 foot circle at the start before taking up the track.
When he arrived at the moose, he stopped and didn’t want to go forward. Then he decided to approach it, and he smelled it without any reaction. The total tracking distance, in very dense cover was about 300 feet.

On the way back the animal was towed by a 4 wheel drive utility vehicle, and in seeing it move, Gunner barked and wanted to jump out of his sac on to the beast. I let him have contact with the moose, and he had already gained confidence. I think that he’s turned on now. He was rewarded with meat from the moose, and he stayed in his sac while we prepared the animal to haul him out of the woods. He is really very calm…

So long.

Guy