backlog: family
This was probably the day Valentine, Milo, Petra, Ender, and Claire were conceived. 😉
backlog: friends
Blueberry
(you know she’s my favorite)
Cherry Grenier
(she’s from the city)
The Nudge (18 years old) and Totally Remiss (21 years old)
Warrior
Ella: “I don’t like me these big dogs. They scares me.”
Billy Grenier
backlog: mommy and me
This was taken right after I came out here in April, at Fair Hill where they do the jump races. I’ve lost 20 lbs since this photo. Still fat, but getting less fat.
backlog: @ sunset
These photos aren’t the greatest, but I loved how the color of the light brought out her paint job.
individual pictures
Finally, here are individual pictures. Wordpress was giving me grief, so they aren’t large here, but click for the giant size.
Miro and Quarra told me that their names did not suit them, and didn’t like any of the other “Ender” themed names I offered. Miro says he is Milo, and Quarra says she is Claire.
“Valentine”
“Milo”
“Petra”
“Ender”
“Claire”
welcome, babies!
Ella is exceedingly pleased with her brood of five pupplets, delivered between 11:45 pm on the 28th and 2:40 am on the 29th. She was waiting for things to settle down around the house, I suppose, as she was holding off all day. When I was sitting on the floor in the mud room cleaning the cat box she came in and asked to curl up in my lap, so we retired to the pool. She then begged that her granny (Rebecca) be there, so we all laid down on the bed together from about 9:30 to 11 pm and napped. At 11 she started to push (and had decided that the pillow Rebecca’s sleeping head was on would be the best place), so I sat in the pool with her from 11 on. She pushed from about 11:15 to 11:45, making progress, and SCREAMED when the first baby came. She was bred by AI, so the tissues were intact in there and needed to be opened. Always smart, and always a planner, she had her smallest puppy first to clear the way. Her second puppy was a full 3 oz bigger! After the first, it was over an hour until the second big puppy, but he came easily, as did everyone else. She didn’t seem bothered at all. She was instantly amazed and in love with her first baby, her eyes big and fascinated. Bronte was a great mother, but she didn’t love her babies, perhaps because she was sick with Lyme at that time and didn’t have the strength. (Lessons learned… ::sigh::) Ella was astounded by what she had done, and as proud of them as she is of her fetching toys. I knew she would be a good mother, she loves puppies, but WOW, she LOVES THESE BABIES, and is keeping them immaculate and well-organized. She is so fastidious that I haven’t had to change the bedding.
“Mommy! Granny! Look at these babies! Ain’t they the prettiest babies you ever seen? They’s so colorful and nice, all lined up.”
And they are, too. Everyone is prettily marked. The black is BLACK, and the blue is clear, and they are unbelievably healthy and vigorous. I could feel how strong they were while they were still inside. I put a huge amount of maintenence into Ella during this pregnancy, making sure she got to do all of her favorite things (to whatever degree she could do them), that she got a lot of exercise, that she was happy (studies have shown that the levels of cortisol – a stress hormone – that bombard a fetus will affect how they behave their entire lives, i.e. a happy mother makes happy puppies/adults, a stressed mother will make worried, stressed puppies/adults, because they are expecting to come into a stressful situation and need to be prepared to survive), that her nutrition was more than adequate, and far above par, that she stayed an ideal weight… And let me tell you how obvious it is. This is a stunning litter, even if not a single one makes it to the ring – which is at the bottom of my priorities, anyway. They are SOOO HEALTHY and vigorous.
I was going to name them all after stars or constellations, since the theme for their registered names is “Astronomy” (Note: Sorry, everyone, these aren’t Ellaments. That was when she was being bred to an element, “Neon Black,” which was not to be. I do, however, have plans for a certain very lovely and wonderful boy as a future hubby for Ella, and his registered name fits well with the Ellaments theme, so that theme will be making an appearence in 2013 or so if all goes as I want it to…) but Rigel, Sirrius, Polaris don’t exactly roll off the tongue, and are very sterile, rigid sounding names anyway. Last week, while cleaning the horse paddock, it occurred to me that I ought to got with an “Ender” theme for puppy names. Ella herself is named after an Ender character, and I’ve had a ton of names from those books on my puppy name list for years, so I decided to clean house. And, since it’s a SciFi series, goes well with the Astronomy theme.
So…
#1 @ 11:45 pm – “Valentine.” Black girl with a squiggly, asymmetrical blaze and a small fairy kiss on the back of her neck. 10 oz. Pretty and feminine and sweet.
#2 @ 12:59 am – “Miro.” Black boy with a black spot covering his nose. He wants to be white-factored, as his white comes up in a square over both shoulders and there is white along the front of each back leg from his socks to his belly. 12 3/4 oz. He is very mellow and quiet, reminds me of Uncle Dex as a newborn. I think he will be a love.
#3 @ 11:15 am – “Petra.” Mismark blue girl. Light grey, the whole right side of her head is white all down her neck, with the right ear all blue. She is very conservatively marked on her show side, though. 12 oz. She will be her mother’s daughter. You can already tell that she is very, very smart. She understands that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and is very deliberate in what she does, and she already oozes personality.
#4 @ 1:45 am – “Ender.” Black boy with a blaze a lot like Val’s, but thicker. The entire back of his show side ear is white. 12 1/4 oz. He seems a little keener than Miro, but is a very calm puppy.
#5 @ 2:40 am – “Quarra.” Slate blue girl, huge black patches. Pretty, pretty, pretty. Her markings, and her white, are so interesting and indescribable. You’ll have to wait for pictures. 11 1/2 oz. She will be a very, very beautiful dog. Heidi wants a blue girl from this litter, and I promised her pick of blue girls (in an attempt to try to keep myself from retaining yet another one), so if she turns out she will go to Heidi. I am already very jealous. 🙂 She is calm and sweet.
Points are all minimal. Valentine has the brightest ones, so I think she will have bright brindle points. No one should be tan-pointed in this breeding.
This morning we celebrated with mimosas made from the bottle of sparkling Dexter’s mom Susan gave me for the occasion (Barefoot winery, which I can only assume she did on purpose, LOL), and have been admiring our fine specimens all day. Ella wanted to fetch first thing outside, and did so for about 3 minutes, running fast and reveling in it. She already acts like nothing happened. After 3 minutes she was ready to go back to her babies, though. You can’t take them more than a foot away or she comes after them. She is the best and most perfect dog in the world. She is the dog of my lifetime and I am so proud and in love with my girl.
Pictures in a bit…
FIVE! (or six)
***UPDATE: I only find 5, but lots of people see 6, and I wouldn’t doubt it. We’ll probably find out today!***
almost there…
Ella is now 49-53 days from her breedings, meaning we’re either two weeks or a week and a half from babies. I will be getting an x-ray on the 27th for a count, and hope that there are enough of them in there that she can free-whelp them. Any less than 4 worries me, and my guess runs from 3 on the low side to 6 on the high side. I am inclined to say that there will be 4. Ella is happy for a light load, as she can still run around pretty much unbothered by her baggage. She does seem a perplexed about why she can’t go as fast as she used to, and why she gets tired so fast. We are keeping her light and fit. She gets lots of walks and play sessions with the chuck-it. She can only fetch a few times before she has to go flounder around in her pool to cool down.
I’m still working on getting my backlog of posts up. That is my intent for my free evening, but I am having trouble figuring out how to get the pictures on my PC onto this Mac. Doesn’t help that I have never owned a Mac, nor worked on one. We’ll see if I’m a clever enough monkey to figure it out.
three weeks
Ella is about three weeks along now. We had a bit of an issue with bleeding in the last week. The vet ruled out infection, but was unsure if it was a miscarriage or just some pregnancy-related bleeding – which I’m told bitches will sometimes get. It will be a few more days before I can ultrasound or palpate her to see if there are any critters in there. She still “feels” pregnant to me. She has started developing some mammary tissue, and her nipples are firmer, fuller, perkier, and a healthy shade of pink. Her activity level has gone back up to normal, but she remains more affectionate. She licks her bowl clean at breakfast and dinner.
I have a computer to work on here, but there is no wireless in the house, so I must make time to sit down with some wifi and post pictures from my computer. Long story short, I’m in Maryland now, with family (yes, I have YET MORE family left to take me in), looking for work, as my options had dried up where I was, and more exaggeratedly so in this economy. I have only applied to one place, and they wanted me to wait to apply elsewhere until they decided if they wanted me. I really like the restaurant, so I gave them a few days. Tomorrow I’ll apply to other places if I haven’t heard from them.
Dexter is with my mom (because he and GoGo don’t get along anymore), waiting for me to go back and get him and deliver him to his excellent new home. Bronte and GoGo are holding down the fort with my boyfriend, waiting until I get a place of my own set up here. Ella, of course, is with me, and is very pleased with herself that she is the one who didn’t get “voted off the island.” She loves her nice green yard, her kiddy pool, her clean air, her fancy cats, and her $3 a pound raw diet, which my step mother has a giant store of in the freezer. Her color has grown very bright and lustrous, whether that be because of the high-society food, or the pregnancy… we will know soon!
Hagaren Cardigans 