Smuggling a Basketball

Pixie has come to the last few days of her pregnancy. The point where she almost drags the ground, but not quite. Every Mom is different. Each litter unique. 

Pixie is a mother in the style of our retired girls CarmelCorn SanDiego and Laffee Taffee, very clingy at the end and hard to make comfortable. She has been ravenously hungry for the last week or so and we are feeding her on meat, noodles, eggs, and everything else she will eat. There are a lot pups in there and we like the to come into our world with a head start in weight. 

Momma has a few extra nipples, so we expect a few extra pups in this litter. But there really is no way of telling until you count tales after whelping. Our girl The Cinnamon Bear had eleven every time, the record. Cinnamon had easy deliveries too and didn't require much from us as she birthed them all. We hope for this sort of thing, but until they start showing up we have to stay involved.

Tonight we start taking shifts. Pixie doesn't rest unless one of us is there to watch out for her. We begin at eight in the evening and I take the first shift. At two in the morning we swap. I sleep the six hours until eight in the morning and then we begin our day as usual. 

In a few days we will walk Pixie everywhere she goes, when she goes. This is a somewhat dangerous time where she might just sponteneously begin throwing pups. Lucy did this in her first litter and carrying Mom and pup back to the house makes for unnecessary excitement. And there is the problem of Mother wanting to pick her own spot too. 

We always use a kiddie pool for whelping. They are inexpensive, washable, and have just enough wall to them to keep the pups in while letting Momma out. But Momma might decide the opening behind our huge shipping container/shop space might be a better place and start digging a den. One of our girls almost made it and had a spot three feet under and it took the best part of the day, and some warm hamburger, to get her to come out.  

We are getting closer with every hour. 

A Puppy Update and On Naming our Basset Babies

Puppy Update: Pixie is "great with child" and getting "big as a house", as she nears her due date. Some Basset moms have a few pups, some have a bigger litter, most are around eight. This litter looks like it is going to be a big one, we are geussing at least eight, probably more. But we won't know until the last one shows up and the counting stops.

We have always use theme in giving our puppies a "kennel names", the name we use until their family chooses another. We tried a number of things along the way to identify the babies so people could figure out which is which. 

Pricilla Pixie Stix' first litter will be named after penny candies. This isn't the first time we've done it, and there simply are no penny candies in the world anymore, but the names are great: Atomic Fireball; Bazooka Joe; Chic-o-stix . . . All are great names and we can't wait until we get to use them. The whole naming thing has developed into a part of how we do things. It keeps things fresh.

The first litter we had, quite a long time ago, we named for cereals. Not just sugery cereals either, that came later, but Chex and Corn flakes, Sugar Pops,  the cereals we had around the house.  Then came trying to color code everyone using colored baby collars. I'd see some on someone else's baby Bassets and bought a set from Amazon. The idea turned out to have problems. The collars got dirty and wouldn't stay stuck, the colors got dirty and had to be replaced. And the coloars had to be removed and reattached a lot, leading into puppies getting the wrong colors. So we gave up on the collars.

We tried making a map of pictures, and giving them numbers. None of these schemes stuck.

Eventually we decided to go back to calling them after candies, cakes, and other sugery things. It seemed we gave them pet names no matter how many other ways we tried to put names to pictures. Themes were easier to do because they made naming memorable and were a lot of fun to talk about on Facebook. So we spent time before each litter finding a theme and then figuring out a list of names to give each puppy as it arrived. Our Facebook Group has often chimed in on the naming thing but I don't do social media any more for the same reason I don't eat at McDonalds, it's all a bit bad for your body and soul. I misss Facebook for the same reason I miss McDonalds. . .  it was an addiction.

There are a lot of candies: movie candies, penny candies, gum, and others, etc; . . .  and we have done them all at least once. I think we even tried Sees candy names once. Sugar cereals has happened a few times too. Snack Cakes. Donuts. All have taken their turn. Each theme has added something to each litter which otherwise wouldn't have been part of the fun. 

This theme naming thing has caught on in the breeding community. So much that nearly every breeder we look at seems now to be doing it. We've seen gourmet foods, vegetables, Soups, and all sorts of ideas. They might all have figured this out on their own, but we like to think we started it. 

People come and take their puppies home, giving them the names the give them, but sometimes the puppies come back to visit us. Sometimes they come for a week's vacation while the family is off on theirs. So we use their puppy name, the one we gave them when they were still wet, as their Camp  Creekside name. The hounds seem to like it and we have a lot of fun trying to figure out which puppy had which name. People name their dogs for the reasons they have, but we like to think the Dogs remember when . . .

Super Short Post

Pixie has a big old baby bump!  

Pixie's really going to be a good mother, she shows all of the signs mentally. She took over as an aunt for Lucy's three pups and was very good at helping Rocky fumble around. Physically, having a first litter really changes our girl, as it does all girls, and Pixie is gettting better physically. But she's being a bit of a brat doing it and has really starting to work the privileged mother thing. We spoil our Moms and they get extra anything they want. We have started keeping her in the house at night with our old boy ClarkeBar. She is getting a bit extra, including treats, and we'll begin boiling chicken breast and rice for her in a few weeks when the protein need goes up. She'll start getting scrambled eggs in the last week when her appitite will slack off.

I'd take a picture of Pixie's bump, but it wouldn't really show the progress. We do everything naturally so there's not going to be anything like medical imaging to count the pups before they are ready in a month. Right now we're expecting six to eight, just because that is the normal. But some have fewer, and some have many more.  Whelping our babies is sort of like opening presents on Christmas morning, you don't know what you get until the wrapping is off. I can't wait!

Our next few weeks will be spent making her comfortable, this includes a lot more people time. TOwards the end she will drop her Mucas Plug and we will begin walking her on a lease so that she doesn't try to find an outdoor space for her whelping. At the very end she will lower her body temperature from the normal of 104-5f. to around 98f. when we start twelve hour shifts around the clock. 

We are ready for pups and a whole bunch of people are watching with us. Anyone interested in finding a new baby for their family should write a little note in the email widget or write us directly at CreeksideFarmOregon@gmail.com and we'll get in touch. 

For those using their phone, this page is made for PC, so here are the links we think will do you the most good.

Reservations for Future Litters

Responsible Ownership

 Please check our reference and come vist us prior to making any money decisions. There are a lot of scammers in our little world. . .  Our address is easy to find, our farm is near Banks, Oregon. You can call Ann at 503-351-0212 to arrange a visit or write us at CreeksideFarmOregon@gmail.com and we will answer every question.