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.

Six Week Evaluation for the Snack Cakes Litter : Zinger (Waylon)

Waylon (Zinger) 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 (DingDong) 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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Zinger (his kennel name), now Waylon, will be living his life with his sibling brother Willie (kennel named HoHo). His new family knows, as do most Basset families, that the breed does much better in groups. We always tell people that two Bassets is half the work of one and offer a large discount for families who take two of the same sex.  Willie, at 5.3 pounds, is quite small in comparison to Waylon, who weighs in at a healthy 9.3 pounds. But Waylon is not at all large in comparison to other Basset Hounds since we are attempting to breed the Basset a bit smaller. Waylon is a wonderful little boy and everything one expects to see in a Basset puppy. He should grow into a full sized dog in the American Basset mold and weigh about sixty pounds as an adult providing he is kept well exercised and not over-fed. Since he is quite a bit larger than his brother, care ought to be taken at meal times to keep Waylon from stealing extra meals. He is aggressive, clownish, playful, scrappy, and waggy tailed. He is a wonderful puppy to watch and to cuddle with, though he is not particularly cuddle minded for the most part. He is adventurous, quick, and loves to patrol the puppy pen while the others sleep. 

Waylon is built sturdy, with large foreleg bones and narrow hips. He didn't need training to get on his feet and begin a life of running, as some other had, but will still need lots of exercise to keep him from bone health problems later in life. He is sleek and tapers from shoulder to waist smoothly. His hips are chunky and strong and he is often found standing on his hind legs to look at things in the larger world outside of his pen. Waylon has a nicely shaped head with long ears well set. He does have an overbite flaw in his jaw setting, but this flaw will likely be outgrown as his adult teeth come in. Waylon has poor stance, a possible indicator of good future hip bone health, so he will need running exercise to stay healthy throughout his life. 

Zinger (Waylon) is a tri-colored male with quite a bit of new brow fur showing up among the darker coat he was born with. His brown bits put one in mind of a well worn leather jacket; the coloring is not smooth, but the texture is fantastic. He will definitely have a brown head and ears to match, while his body might retain much of the black coat. He is developing ermine spots on his white collar and should be a great looking Basset as he grows into adulthood. His fur is wonderfully soft to the touch and he has ample kin folding at his shoulders. 

Despite the problems of some of his siblings, of the five AKC derived points Waylon loses only half of one point for the troubles in this litter and the genetic trait which causes occasional overbite in every Abba Zabba and Bit O'Honey litters. He does gain half of one point for aesthetic appeal, making his evaluations five of the six points. Waylon might be bred to a high quality female if rights are obtained. But breeding for this litter, in general, is not being encouraged (or at least ought to be done with extra care looking at possible litter problems of his paired mate).  

Six Week Evaluation for the Snack Cakes Litter : HoHo (Willie)

Willie (HoHo) 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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HoHo, the name we used when he was whelped, is now called Wille. He will be a lifetime companion our other male puppy, now named Waylon. Willie was one of our major health scares early on. He had trouble focusing his attention of eating. We pay close attention, in the first days of a new litter, to the weight of each pup and HoHo (Willie) was losing weight even though he seemed to be feeding. While not all pups are "good eaters", in some this can develop into a condition known as Failure to Thrive and this is often fatal since it occurs during the most important part of puppy development. We caught the condition as it developed and put HoHo on bottle feeding and a lot of extra care. Eventually his weight began to rise and he made a full recovery. In our experience our pups nearly double in weight every week, HoHo reached this first week milestone after three weeks of extra care so we were concerned he would suffer permanent development deficiency issues. Today he weighs in at just over half the size of his siblings and is eating solid food with the litter. We have been trying to breed some of the size out of the Basset Hound and in Willie it seems likely he will be a small Basset adult. But this is not to say that he doesn't meet the Standard. Nor does this say we have bred a genetically stable smaller Basset.

Willie is a good example of the breed at this point in his life. His foreleg bones are stout and sufficient for his diminutive size, his body is shaped well and his hip stance, perhaps a good indicator of future bone health, is aggressive and quite strong. Willie tapers well from shoulder to waist and has fairly well developed hip width consistent with his smaller frame. Head shape, ear size and setting (with his ears being set well back on his well domed head), jaw setting, and tail, are all quite good. His feet are sized well and we expect that he will continue to catch up in size to his litter mates, while not reaching what might be considered completely full size. 

Wille had quite a lot of extra attention in the early going, so he has quite a bit of lap sitter in his personality. He is accustomed to being slightly abused by his large litter mates and has learned to snap back and defend himself, while often looking to others for protection. He loves to snuggle up closely and spend time with humans. He is a serious boy, not given to joviality, but he does love to play chase games, at least until the game turns to rough and tumble play. He likes to spend time alone with a toy occasionally. Being small Willie likes special treatment, but is otherwise a normal happy puppy. 

Willie is a tri-colored buy, with little brown fur showing today. But we expect he will eventually develop quite a bit more brown in his coat and have a red head and ears as an adult. His fur coloring is very symmetrical in the face. The texture of his fur is soft, but not especially luxurious. While Willie is a lovely puppy, he is not of show quality. But he will make a particularly lovely pet.

Though a bit unexpected, Willie receives full marks for structural development and loses one point for his early  days of not eating since the outcome of this is not known.  Willie may become something of an oddity for his size, but only time to grow will tell us how large he may become. He is a good looking little guy and gets half a point for aesthetic appeal (and almost got the full point for pretty). Four and a half points on our six point scale is a good set of marks considering how he started off.