The Penny Candy Litter - Necco - Day One

Some puppies are just big, by far the heavyweight champion at one pound even, and happy. This is the only way to describe Necco (Niko), a very large male that will likely become a mottled red and white happy boy pal. He arrived  at 3:05 P.M. on January 30th, 2026 and was happy to wander slowly around until he ran into Pixie for a late lunch and a nap. I liked him the moment I saw him and this is something I am looking for in the pups, instant likability. I look forward to watching him develope.

Male
Red and White

16 Ounces
Very Strong

The Penny Candy Litter - Tootsie Pop - Day One

The last to arrive at the party, Tootsie Pop arrived without warning and we found him trying not to be seen. This one was bigger, 14.7 Ounces. Not the heaviest of the ten, but larger in stature none the less. He came into the world at 3:30 on January 30th, 2026 with an appitite and very little attitude. Sometimes they are quiet and unassuming.

Male
Red and White

14. Ounces
A big one

The Penny Candies Day Two

The Pups are doing very well.
Five Red and Whites, five tri-colored.

We had a great day yesterday, great being a bit of a relative word. The whelping went very well. Ten puppies eventually hit the floor running. There were literally no problems with anything at all except having enough time for all that was going on. In the end the only thing we didn't get done was get enough sleep. So we will take the day as a win and move on to Day Two. There are worse things than having no troubles.

Today I woke from my three hour early morning nap, the nap that must take the place of a night's sleep, and continue; having spent the entirety of yesterday moving swiftly between tasks on three hour's sleep from the night before. Ann was able to attempt sleep in her four hour window of opportunity and would have made it too had not a troupe of three young raccoons disturb the night by climbing the Oak tree outside the fence at the Northeast corner of the farm. This corner is really one of the only things our tangle of hounds can see from their palacial doghouse so, at two in the morning, we had seven hounds go completely nuts. The night wasn't as restful as it might sound, but the babies did very well.

The babies are wonderful and they do what they do with aplomb. We judge the first day of a litter a win if we can get all the puppies to eat something. This was a wildly successful day in this respect. All of the pups are quite mobile and all had no trouble finding Pixie and filling up. 

This is a large litter, ten is unusual for us, and this litter is quite chatty. There have been a few tragic puppies in past litters so we are quite vigilent about listening for distress and counting noses every hour to make sure nobody is buried under a Mother that may be too tired to notice.  We have always loved the sound of puppies going about their business and this litter is especially lovely to hear. I had to extract a puppy from being covered by Mom five times, which is something of a record.

It is possible to suffocate a puppy who has somehow made it under their mother for a few days so we take shifts listening for distress and counting noses.  They can pretty much manage to keep themselves safe after their eyes open and they get their feet under them. Everyone made it through the first night and Pixie is a naturally good mother whenn it comes to keeping the little wrigglers out from behind and under her. She hasn't left them for a minute since yesterday, but she has allowed me to change the bedding a few times and has gone outside once today.

Add to all this that we have visiting hounds from previous litters staying a few days and the days are full to overflowing. We wouldn't have it any other way. We have one of Lilly's pups, Henry, visiting for a few days. One of Abby's, Coconut, and Pina Colada, on of Lucy's, spending the day here while their parents are at the beach. We charge for room and boarding overnight, but anyone wanting to day trip out can just drop them off and get them, same day, for free.

I still have to get pictures posted. We are awfully busy, incredibly tired, an tremendously happy. 

The Penny Candy Litter - Dot - Day One

As we neared the end of Pixie's whelping, meaning that she was deflating and no longer looked like a Basset Hound Basketball, Dot came out talking loudly at 2:40 P.M. on January 30th, 2026. Late for breakfast, she starting in on lunch pretty quickly once she figured out how. This one is a singer.

Female
Red and White

13.8 Ounces
More white than red

The Penny Candy Litter - Mary Jane - Day One

I still haven't picked my favorite, but Mary Jane is in the running. She was tiny, 12.6 Ounces, and arrived after a long break at 2:40 on January 30th, 2026. She was a wild child and walked out of Pixie with a bounce in her step and ready for the world. 

Female
Tri-Colored

12.6 Ounces of fun
Bouncy Bouncy . . . 

The Penny Candy Litter - Smartie - Day One

At 11:45 on January 30th, 2026 this cutey came out weighing 15.5 sturdy ounces. This one may turn out special and carries what Basset Breeders like to call "God's Tumbprint" on top of his head. Smartie is a strong puppy.

Male
Red and White

13.3 Ounces
Wonderful coloring

The Penny Candy Litter - Atomic Fireball - Day One

Atomic Fireball arrived hungry at 11:35 A.M. on January 30th, 2026 and came out hungry. Eating is a great skill to have when you are a newborn Basset Hound and Fireball is a natural. She was the first to find Pixie for a sip of breakfast. She wasn't the largest pup, at 13.3 ounces, but that number will change if she continues to stay locked on to the meal train. 

Female
Red and White

13.3 Ounces
A good eater

The Penny Candy Litter - Twizzler - Day One

Twizzler arrived Happy (tail wagging) and mobile (looking around right away) at 10:05 A.M. on January 30th, 2026. 

At first glance I have to say this one may become something special. Nearly perfect symmetry and wonderful coloring usually makes for some pretty puppies turning into beautiful dogs. ROcketdog Rockford Rhoades, the sir, usually brings good genetic traits tot ehe mix and sometimes gives us a higher quality pup.  We cannot truly tell how things will go, but I have a feeling about Twizler.

Male
Tri-Colored

 

13.5 Ounces
A real beauty.

The Penny Candy Litter - Hubba Bubba - Day One

Hubba Bubba was a nice looking boy and arrived at 10:00 A.M. weighing 15.5 ounces. He started life on the move and began wandering the whelping pool right away. 

Male
Tri-Colored

15.5 Ounces
Very Mobile

The Penny Candy Litter - Bazooka Joe - Day One

Bazooka Joe (Joe) arrived second in the litter at 9:50 A.M. on January 30, 2026. Joe was very strong right away. He was quiet, as opposed to vocal, and was not happy to be held or sit still. A strong type with very good facial symmetry. 

Male
Tri-Colored

15.8 Ounces
Quiet and Wriggly

Journal for whelping Pixie's Penny Candy Litter - Ten Little Beauties

So much happens once puppies begin to emerge. So much to do, check, and watch out for. We have eight Bassets here, twelve hens, and five ducks. Only one mother makes the work easier, but care and feeding takes time and can't really be skipped over. Feeding ourselves is a good idea but adds to an already full morning a new mother dropping a new baby every half hour. Things need to go along with the plan to keep from having stuff go wrong.

Whelping takes work. You must be vigelent every minute throughout labor. Then helpfull when birthing begins. Clearing airways, drying fur, weighing, pictures, and assigning names . . . It all takes time and attention to detail. But it is worth doing things right for many reasons.

At 9:30 a.m. Pixie launched a beautiful little girl into the world without assistance or complaint. We'll begin photos and the rest soon enough. A tri-colored female named Chic-O-Stix (nick named Chica)

9:50 Tri Male named Bazooka Joe (Joe)

10:00 Tri Male named Hubba Bubba (Bubba)

10:05 Tri Male  named Twizzler (Twiz)

11:30 Waiting on more . . . She is working on the next one but sometimes it takes a while. Pixie is a rare Basset. They usually do this in the dead of night. Nice to be working in daylight. ClarkeBar is the only one allowed into the house at this point, but the tangle of hounds is so excited. Outside of the doors they sit and send Pixie relatively quiet well wishing barks. I have weights and pictures of the first four but it will be a while before I get them cropped and uploaded. So far all four are very healthy and awfully active, much more than most. This is going to be fun.

11:35 Red and White Female named Atomic Fireball (Fireball)

11.45 Red and White Male named Smartie

1:40 p.m. Tri-colored Female Mary Jane

2:40 p.m. Red and White Female Dot

3:05 p.m. Red and White Male Necco

3:30 p.m. Red and White Male Tootsie Pop

It appears that ten baby Bassets is the number. 

Every pup was strong, mobile, and hungry right away and none of them needed coached or CPR.  We have weights and pictures for them all and I will get them posted as soon as I can.

Pixie did very well and is sleeping right now. Ten in about six hours was quick. She never said "ouch" and accepted our help the whole time. It was a good day.

Much more to follow. . .

The Penny Candy Litter - Chic-O-Stix - Day One

Chica was the first to arrive at 9:30 A.M. on January 30, 2026.  She came into the world hungry, meaning that she immediately began searching for breakfast at Mom's. She was very vocal and aware that she was alive at birth (this is not always the case since some tend to being a bit passive).  It is difficult to say what each pup will eventually be but at six weeks, when we do final evaluations,  we will be able to make a good guess. 

Chic-O-Stix (Chica)
Female Tri-Colored

13.5 Ounces
Aware and Hungry

Early Labor

Pricilla Pixie Stix is panting, restless, and happy as can be. Sure signs of early labor. We expect to be up all night. Stay tuned. . .

Ready to go.

Ready for almost anything. Pixie was thrilled to see her new room and climb into the pool. 

She got over it pretty quickly.

Temperature is Dropping

 Basset internal temperatures usually hovers at around 104 degrees (f), unless they are sick or nearing whelping. We usually begin temping our mothers about a week from their due date. In this case the due date is the third of February so we started this morning since Pixie is so very big and having the dog equivalent of false labor occasionally. This morning she was at 98.4 degrees. So it's time to get our whelping act together and prepare for the seige that is whelping. 

We've been taking shifts for almost a week now, watching her through the night and making sure she is well fed and as comfortable as we can make her. Tonight we will begin walking her out at night when she wants to go and stay within a few feet of her at all times for safety.

We have bought a new tarp to cover her whelping pen and brought down the kiddie pool where the blessed event will take place. This evening we will be ready. These things always start at sunset and are usually finished at dawn, but this is not always the way it goes. Which suset she begins with is still a mystery.

Laffee Taffee would go in and out of labor for a week, then have the litter in rapid fire succession. The Cinnamon Bear would show no signs of labor and then walk into the pool to have her eleven effortless pups. Some take much more work. Some have troubles.  There's no telling how Pixie will do her thing, but we'll be there helping where we can. 

Pixie's pups will all be named for Penny Candies, the stuff of our childhood. We have picked ten names and hope to not need them all. 

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.