Six Week Evaluation for the Snack Cakes Litter : Cupcake (Celia)

Celia (Cupcake) at Six Weeks

 Abagail (Abba) Zabba and Rocketdog Rockford (Rocky) Rhoades got together to produce a wonderful litter of pet quality puppies. This was the third and final litter for Abba Zabba (who will be spayed and retired to our farm). This is the fifth litter for Rocky and his first as our only breeding male. This litter presented some challenges which I will note in this introduction, but the outcome today is that we have six wonderful and healthy puppies to evaluate.

We have been writing litter evaluations since 2015 using a Six Point Evaluation which takes into account the five key points of the American Kennel Club descriptive criteria for the breed, and one point which we assign subjectively and is based solely on looks and personality. It's a good idea to look at Our Six Point Evaluation page to familiarize yourself with how we determine what is important in each evaluation. There were some health issues in this litter which should be discussed prior to evaluating the individuals: 

• One little girl had heart murmurs and an inoperable double hernia, among other things, which eventually led us to make the hard choice to relieve her suffering. This was our only "Sad Puppy".
• The second major problem came in the first puppy of the litter, a little male named HoHo, who displayed a condition commonly known as "Failure to Thrive". Happily for us all, we caught this lack of eating skills defect early on and were able to hand feed him back to health and he is now a healthy and scrappy little boy.
• The third problem we encountered as the happy problem of puppies overeating and having weight become an issue in early development. Two of our pups need special training to get them up and running on their feet. We caught the condition in the first weeks and were able to train the pups with lazy backsides to use their legs as they should.

Since Abba Zabba is retiring, were are not worried about passing bad traits on to future offspring.  We haven't had health issues here since we retired Bit O'Honey early and since Bit O'Honey and Abba  Zabba are littermate sisters from the same kennel we suppose these problems were genetic in some ways, but none of this should be a problem for the breed going forward. Certain of the pups will not have the option for purchase of breeding rights and we do this for the good of the breed more than any warning of future health concerns. We expect no further health troubles in the litter and have not experienced any health problems in the past four weeks. 

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Cupcake (now Celia) favors her mother's Normand styling and color, but will likely favor her father's strong European traits as she grow into adulthood. She has great 

Celia has more than adequate foreleg bone thickness, favoring her Sire, and a narrow shoulder width, favoring her mother. She has two unique structural flaws, a slight kink in her tail, which she was born with but would be hard to spot if you did not know what to look for, and a slight overbite flaw in her jaw setting which will  likely clear itself when her adult teeth arrive. She is adventurous, but likes most laying around with her sisters. Celia is a bit lazy and should receive extra exercise to avoid problems later in life.  She is happy to snuggle, so long as she is allowed to nap. An easy puppy to hold.

Cupcake (now Celia) is a fair example of the Basset breed, though she is styled somewhere between two distinct types of American Basset. She is a bit narrower in her face than her more blocky European siblings, and she is a bit narrower in her shoulders as well. Both of these traits are indicative of the Normand Styling coming through the much stronger Basset features of her father. He head is not highly domed but her ears are set perfectly and add quite a wonderful appearance. He bone structure is a bit lighter than the heavier of the litter and her foreleg bones are sufficiently heavy. But her stance is weak, lacking the strength of her heavier sisters. 

Cupcake (now Celia)  is darkly colored, and it appears she will eventually turn brown in the ears and perhaps a few spot on her body. Though her head coloring is symmetrical now, this will go away as her head becomes entirely brown in color. Expect a quick, sleek, and clever Basset. 

Celia gains three and one half points against the AKC Standard since she has three minor flaw in bone structure areas. We will not be offering breeding rights for her for this reason alone. She gains the entire point for being aesthetically pleasing. In total Celia received four and one half points of the six available.