Bear Walking

 This morning we have puppies walking like baby bears. The legs get under them and they move forward two steps before returning to swimming around on their bellies. The Internations Candies move very quickly at this stage of the game, compare to the first few days when they don't move well at all. But with their eyes and ears closed they tend to bump into things. Walking at one week is more about getting to Mom quicker than the next guy than it is getting somewhere in particular.

Lilly spends less and less time in the Whelping pool as days go by. They are good eaters and she empties out pretty quickly now, but as they begin moving faster the competition can get stiff and the babies insistent. 

In a few days their eyes and ears will open fully and they can begin to learn how to use them. Yesterday we could see a few of them trying to force the eye lids open, but so far we don't see the dull reflection of new eyes. Once the eyes are open we'll remove the kiddie pool and things will get a whole bunch more interesting.

They've grown so much!

They most certainly know how to eat! 

The International Candies are all proficient eaters. It might sound weird but this isn't always how things go. We've had litters where there are one or two who don't know how to get enough food from Mom to put on the desired amount of weight. The danger in not eating is called a "failure to thrive". It happens every once in a while so we have strategies and tools to put the weight on when we see this and get everyone healthy if needed. Right now it's not needed.This bunch is a whole lot of milk sacks.

There are other concerns about eating too much that we watch for as well. Heavy puppies can have "Swimmer Syndrome" and need remedial training when learning to walk. This lot likely won't have any of that to worry about.  They will all be runners by four weeks and we are already seeing a lot of pushing each other around as they learn to use their legs.

We will weigh everyone on Saturday, at one week old. We expect them all to have doubled their birth weights and continue doubling every week. until weening at four weeks. We expect to see eyes and ears opening at the end of the second week, give or take a few days. This is when pictures start being taken.  This is about the time when we take the whelping pool out of the puppy pen and they will start running around. Four weeks is when Mom can't possibly keep up, so we start putting mushy puppy chow into the mix. From that point on it is a smelly pandemonium around here and people visitors begin to handle them.

Summer is the best time for puppies. they get a lot of outdoor time and start interacting wth our pack of hounds. This is going to be fun.

Dewclaw Day

Not a Basset Foot

 Very early in every litter we remove the "Dewclaw" to make everyone's life easier. Ann does most the work. Though I am a tough, I simply have a hard time watching. My job is to hold each puppy with my eyes closed and that's enough involvment for me.

The dewclaw is a thumb on the foreleg and it can be something of a problem. It performs no function for pets and can get caught on things and injured.And it makes makes trimming the nail more difficult, so the nail is often neglected since the other nails wear down through use and this one doesn't. Bassets are huggers and wrap their fore-legs around you in different ways, the dewclaws can make this less fun. So taking them off is a good idea and best done when the babies are only a few days old.  Ann does the deed and before you can carry them back to the Whelping Pen the momentary bleeding is stopped and the puppy feels just a second or two of pain the entire time. 

Today, while I went for supplies (mostly the junk food we eat during the long hours when the babies are very young) Ann called my brother in to hold babies and I came home to a peaceful, and Dewclaw free, house. Hurray for me!

Morning for our International Candies

Click for a bigger picture

 The Candies are doing very well. Eight beautiful Basset Babies have their cute little tails on the ground. Lilly is eating well, as are the Candies.  There's enough of everything, sleep schedules are being maintained, and nobody needs to run into town for anything. Even the weather is in sync. The days are lovely and the nights are cool with a light Summer breeze. I could go on and on. All is well.

We will be posting new pictures and weights pretty soon. Right now there isn't enough change to make our first pictures different than what we see today. But things progress pretty fast and the first six weeks go by quickly.  We weigh them weekly to make sure they are thriving. If someone doesn't eat well we find a way to get them growing. The milestones for growth are pretty well known. At six weeks we do a final evaluation and can say pretty definitively what each puppy will become. They have personalities right now and characteristics show up early on. But everything else is in flux and nothing is certain until about six weeks. The only thing that doesn't change is the boy/girl question, but even that can be read wrong at first. Laffee  Taffee's first Bubblegum girl (Bubbalicious), is the best boy Basset (Bubba / Stanley) we have seen so far. . . 

We've had a few people coming out to meet our family in hopes of finding a new baby for theirs. We really encourage people to come meet the hounds prior to committing themselves to spending money on their project. It is hard to keep the scammers out of your pockets and the most certain way to protect everyone involved is to do things old school. Visit your breeder, read the contract, and trust your gut. We will certainly earn your trust and deliver on the promises we make.

One family has chosen a puppy (not out of the ordinary to have early adopters). Pending my sending them a deposit invoice Toblerone will no longer be available. We don't encourage such quick decisions but we do things on a first come and first served basis and deposits are never returned if minds change. Take your time deciding as best you can, that is the best way. If you have preferences as to who or how many of what, we will try to accomodate your desires if it is possible. 

So far this entire year has gone along as if we planned it. This is strange because we've been doing this for twenty years and so far nothing has gone along as if we planned anything. Who and when we paired Lilly and Rocky was planned years ago. The pregnancy went very well and Lilly was very happy right up until the final act played out. The babies took their sweet time finding a way into the world, but we had everything in place to handle a seige of any length. In truth, we made it look easy this time. I suppose experience counts after all, but it might be that we didn't have crops to plant so time was on our side. However occurring, even the food we did plant went easier and is doing better. So life is better than good here and even the fruit tress are cooperating. Would that the length of our long lives had always gone so smoothly during the difficult bits.

Still more to do?

Update: Lilly has stopped laboring, panting, and having solid contractions, so we are assuming there are no more than the eight we have lounging around on blankets right now. We do everything naturally so we really don't know.  Any last babies are taking their own sweet time showing themselves. Right now there are five boys and three girls. This is a pretty good litter and easy to count. One more girl puppy would be nice, but another boy is certainly welcome too. So long as everyone is happy and healthy we are good with whatever the day brings. Eight is plenty.

Being able to count puppies easily is important because until their little eyes are open and they are up on their feet they are always in danger of bigger things. When they are very new they wander under their mom pretty easily and she doesn't notice. We will count them a lot and stay within close hearing range (twenty-four-seven) to avoid accidents. After they can keep themselves safe we will still count them a lot, but not because we're worried about accidents.

We are now accepting deposits from those people who wish to choose their new baby(s), but there is no hurry. People's preferences are being considered as we go forward and we will let you know if your preferences are in conflict with others. 

The International Candies Litter: Milka

10:20 a.m. Male Caramel Red and White named Milka. After five hours of waiting he came out with no note explaining his tardiness. 14.6 ounces and quiet.

The International Candies Litter: Kinder Bueno

4:55 a.m. Female, largely black, tri colored. Her kennel name is Kinder Bueno. Lilly is pretty tired out but she's still working on the project. 12.5 ounces of pretty little girl.

The International Candies Litter: Cadbury

4:20 a.m. Male Tri-colored named Cadbury. It took him quite a while to show up and it worried us a bit. But eventually he came through. He has a tremendous sucker and already shows off his boy bits, which is sort of rare. 12.3 ounces and walking with his feet under him.

The International Candies Litter: Ferrero Rocher (not available)

Our beautiful Baby Ferrero Rocher suddenly developed a herniated bladder absess in her gut on her ninth day which was not operable and would have led into a short life of increasing suffering. The morning or the 21st she was fine and beginning to walk, by evening she was not. The thread of life is thin for puppies and it is not unusual to lose one or two along the way to varying causes. We are never happy about it and tears flow here.

This is the best that can be said. We will miss having her around and our hearts are saddened for anyone considering taking her into their family. But nothing could be done at any cost which would have effected the outcome and it is better that this happened to us than to someone who trusted us and put their hearts and money into it . 

The International Candies Litter: Hapi

2:40 a.m. Female beautiful Mahogany and White named Hapi. Came out a bit rougher than we like but sparked right up with a bit of toweling and twirling. She's quiet and more about breakfast than anything else. 14.3 ounces and very wriggly, very hungry. Her tail has the tiniest little white tip.

The International Candies Litter: Reisen

2:15 Male Mohogany Red and White. Kennel named Reisen. 11.5 ounces, hungry and headstrong.

The International Candies Litter: Pocki

2:05 a.m. Male Tri-colored male. He has a cute little Yin-Yang thing on his butt. 13.5 ounces and wriggly, very wriggly, puppy. But quiet (like a ninja).

Mother and baby

I don't do many pictures during whelping. It's a messy business so waiting for linen changes make for better family pictures.

The International Candies Litter: Toblerone (Taken)

1:50 a.m. Male Mahogany Red and White male. Kennel named Toblerone. 15.7 ounces. At 3:30 we took him off his Mom. He ate for an hour and a half and we didn't want to see him pop. :-)

Toblerone has a new family in Lake Oswego. He is looking forward to a lifetime of being spoiled silly.

He's lovely, wandering around looking for Lilly, and vocal, though not too noisy. 

Tonight is the Night

 Lilly is in her whelping bed and laboring pretty hard this evening. All is well and progress is steady. I am seeing Lilly push right now and Ann is in there with her with gloves on to catch the first thing that comes out of this. We've been fooled before, but this looks pretty serious.

Crowning could happen at any moment. . . 

Working the Midnight Shift

Starting this evening we are beginning to cover the late night hours to keep an eye on Lilly and she gets closer to the big day (night). I usually take the eight to two shift, Ann works the two to eight. Things can happen very quickly once they get going. Not all of the girls needs the help. Abba Zabba and The Cinnamon Bear both prefferred whelping alone.  It is currrently one-thirty A.M. on Thursday, so it can happen at any time, but tomorrow night through Saturday is the due date and it is never very far off the day. Things usually start when the night gets dark and continues until day break. 

We accomodate the mothers as best we can but are not very far away at any point in the process. For the most part the girls like having us help out. Ann gives the babies a tug if it is needed and I keep them calm and quiet. If there's a problem I usually step in. But my role has always been support. I get the coffee, make the omlettes, bring fresh towels, all that. I also do the writing, photography, weighing, and naming.

Lilly is panting a bit, but not too serious abou it yet. She is eternally happy and really looking forward to getting this all out of her way. We are walking her outside on a leash because Bassets can be tricksy and hard to dig out of wherever they decide to dig under. Lilly dislikes the leash but trusts us and let's us have our way.

All is in readiness.

Almost time! Poorbaby is getting so round! She is eternally happy about this, constant tail wagging and a big silly grin on her face.

The Last Week

 Lilly is in the last week and she seems to be looking forward to shedding some of the burden. She know we are there for her and relies on us heavily where she can. 

This morning she went out to hunt rabbits in a spot on the other side of our vegetable garden. The rabbits are looking forward to the free food and our plants are growing well. We're looking forward to seeing our hounds protecting the garden. Lilly went out at five in the morning and came back in around seven. It's a perfect early Summer day for all of us but it is time to get ready for puppies.

We've done this before. A chain of events we've improved steadily over the years. We put down a moving blanket pad on our heated floor and cover it with a new blue tarp that the whelping pen holds down flat. We will bring one of the kiddie pools we use for whelping down from the attic and santitize it, but don't actually put it into the pen until we're only a day out. We've already brought out the stacks of towels and boxes of equiptment to check for completeness. We'll be ready but the night of whelping is always a surprize.

From this point forward we'll go outside when Lilly does to try and keep her from finding a private spot where she can make a whelping den of her own. The girls usually pick some sheltered place under the blackberries or our steel shipping container, but we also have many trailers here which might make suitable spots. None of these places is easy to get into and the urge to find a private den increases every day. But we're careful. In the last few days we'll leash her whe we go outside. 

Poor Lilly looks like she's smuggling a basketball. Almost dragging the floor and not happy to climb stairs. But smiling all the same.