mataxhuddydiary

Diary of Mata and Hudson's litter

Mata at 4 wks pregnant, not showing, but feeling very punky the past week!

At 6 wks pregnant, the pretty girl is definitely showing!!!!

At 7 wks: a little bigger. 2 yo Sonya's waiting patiently for little playmates!

At 8 wks "Look at my babies!.. Oh Huddy, do you still think I'm sexy?"

Sept 14, 2008: Mata came into season. This is her 5th cycle, and first time to be bred. She's 3.5 years old and already has 8 titles to her name (show, hunt test, obed, agility and rally)!

Sept 22 (day 8): Dr Sandy declares her to be 80-90% cornified, but progesterone only came back at 0.9ng. Did our Brucella screen at this visit, all clear. We will return!

Sept 26 pm (day 12): Progesterone is rising, but still only came in at 3.3ng the next morning. Tell the 2 lovebirds that! Liz brought Huddy over within an hour of the blood draw and they quickly got down to business! I kept Hudson here in Yakima for the next 6 days, during which neither one seemed "separable" at times...

Oct 22 thru 27 (3.5 to 4.5 weeks): Mata is definitely punky, eating slowly... good sign!

Nov 1 (5 weeks post ovulation): Mata is looking a bit fuller despite no increase in food..

Nov 5 (5.5 wks post ovulation): Definitely pregnant, time to increase her food by 15%.

Nov 13 (6.5 wks post ovulation): Saw our first kick(!) from a baby that looked to be ~2.5" long!

Nov 20 (7.5 wks post ovulation): Food has been increased weekly and is at ~145% of her normal now. She is getting crowded, so I've divided her food into 3-4 meals a day. She now measures ~6" bigger at her midsection and waist than normal, and is definitely lean.

Nov 27 (61 days post ovulation): Mata has increased in girth by ~8" now, but temperature is still holding at ~100F. It won't be long though as she looked at her food this am, and flicked a goodly percentage of it out onto the floor for her sisters! Just not much room left in that body for food... stay tuned, I expect to see a temperature drop w/in the next 24 hrs. Everything is ready to go in the basement/whelping room when she is.

Nov 28 pm (62 days post ovulation): Mata has increased in girth by 10" now in her mid section. At 2pm, her temperature was still at 100.1F but by 930pm, it dropped to 98.8F. Showtime?

Nov 29 pm (est 63rd day = due day): Mata's temperature was 98.2F this am. She slept well until ~4am. Not bad. She's been in "soft labor" most of the day, but nothing hard. It's almost 8 pm, and I'm still waiting....

Nov 30 1:50am: The first puppy has finally arrived! It's a Black female, 17.66 oz!!! Then came another 17 oz BF, followed by 2 15 oz BFs, and another 17 oz BF! I was beginning to wonder if we were stuck on black girls, but then came a 17 oz Black Male, followed by an 18.5 oz BM!

Final count at 4:30 am (fast whelp!) is 5 BF, 2 BM. Mom and pups are doing GREAT!

Dec 1, 7am: All of the pups have gained nicely the past 24 hrs. The biggest boy has already gained 3.33 oz! Average weight gain is 2 oz-- quite good! Mata's temperature is normal, and her appetite is quite good. Great Granny Gala already invited herself into the whelping box last night when I left the ex-pen open, and Mata was okay with that. It will be a couple more days before I will really allow the others to get too nosey though, as mom needs her space right now!

Dec 2: The pups went for their first car ride to the vet clinic this morning for dew claw removal. Though only 2 days old, they were still a handful to hold! The big boy (I call him the Big Green Machine) is nearly 1.5# already! Mata weighed in at 58.5#, which is a little light considering her "milk bar" weight, but Dr. Matt commented that she looked great. I know from experience not to let a nursing mom get too thin though, so we'll keep on top of that. She's already having to eat 2 extra cups to feed the 9# of puppies. Mata was very happy to get them all back home and in the comfy warm whelping box again. No one seemed any worse for the wear!

Dec 3: Weights this morning range from 20 oz to 1.6# (Big Green, lol). What an aggressive group of eaters! Mata is getting very little quality sleep right now but is being a great mom! I started the Early Neurological Stimulation program (aka Super Puppy) last night and was happy with the initial responses. No one was a huge struggler, every one struggled a bit initially but settled in relatively quickly-- showing it is an adaptable lot of pups, I hope!

Dec 4: The puppies are starting to nurse longer and sleep longer in between meals, which means mom can enjoy the sunshine a bit more today! Adding up the puppy weights, there are 10.8 lbs of puppy in that box already! That's over 1.5# a piece on average. Amazing!

Dec 7: Pups are one week old already. They range in weights from 1.75 lb to 2.3 lb and are doing great. Yesterday Mata had her first human visitors and seemed to enjoy showing off her brood. Today Sonya (photo below) and her mom Fuji, invited themselves into the box to see the puppies more up close and personal. Mata watched both, but didn't seem quite as concerned as she had in days past. So far, Jazz has been the most polite, just standing at the doorway of box to inspect!

Dec 11: The puppies' eyes are opening and they are making increasingly more noise in their wakening hours. Gala and I have moved back upstairs to our (much more comfortable!) bed at night, but Mata still comes to wake me up a couple times during the night as she needs to do her business after eating all the extra food she needs these days! She's eating about 4 cups of food EXTRA already--- just to make the milk to feed the 18 lbs of puppies.

Dec 14: Two weeks old today and are they ever finding their "wheels", buzzing about when mom stops in! I evaluated again this afternoon, and dewormed all. It's a very nice and uniform bunch structurally. Weight gain continues to be good.

Dec 19: Pups now average 3.5# a piece with Big Green tipping the scales at 4# yesterday. The smallest 2 girls are 3.2# each, which is big for this age-- must be all that good nutrition! I did deal w/ some loose stools this past week which can be a sign of overeating and likely associated with the fact they are cutting teeth.

Earlier this week, I noticed the pups were already establishing a potty area in the box-- which is excellent. I pulled some of the newspaper out from under the blanket in that area, and sure enough, they began to use the "stinky area" regularly. Yesterday, I transitioned them to a tray lined w/ newspaper, layered some of their future "potty pool" woody pellets on top of that, and topped w/ their stinky area newspaper that had already been piddled on. They immediately began to use it. The photos below were taken before I changed their bedding for the day, just to show how clean they are keeping their "living room" already-- only 1 little mess outside the tray! This will make it so easy to transition to the potty pool once they are moved to their big pen in the garage next week!!!

Dec 21: Three weeks old! A couple nights ago I decided the pups needed to start eating a little solid food as they've been draining poor Mata lately. No hesitation--- they dove right in. The pictures pretty much tell the story! :)

Dec 27: Tomorrow the pups will be 4 weeks old. The cold weather has finally given a bit--- enough for me to heat the garage sufficiently so they could settle into their new digs today! I put their potty pan on top of the pool, and they seem to be catching onto that quickly. After Mama Mata cleaned up their lunch dish, she served up "dessert" in the crate (back side of pen) where they all quickly dozed off in a pile. :) Average weights are now ~5.5 lbs with Big Green still in the lead at nearly 6.5 lbs. They sure are a happy bunch to snuggle with, but alas, those sharp teeth made their appearance this week! They had a pedicure with the dremel tool last night (had been using a small set of clippers) and all were fine, with the exception of a moderately protesting Yellow collared girl. She learned she'd survive though...

Jan. 4, 2009: Happy New Year from the crew, now 5 wks old! It was a busy week. I added an "agility tunnel" to the pen, followed by a little "A Frame" (about a 12" speed bump!) this week after expanding the pen area. Potty training has been going great w/ hardly a miss. The pups had their nails dremeled again this past week, have taken turns coming into the family room to play with the big dogs, briefly got introduced to the great white outdoors (brrr), and even went for a short car ride!

Jan 11, 2009: We're 6 weeks old and do we ever have some stamina now! This week, mom threw us a dead/frozen quail and purple girl (the mellowest of the group) snatched it up, ran through the tunnel, up the "A frame" and almost made it all the way back to deliver to hand! What a riot. We've gotten to chase the dead bird and a chukar wing on a twine a few times this week... always leading to craziness, but very tired happy puppies in the end. The weather has been more cooperative as well, so we've gotten to go play outside several times too. Sonya is our best bud-- we think she's an Aunt or Cousin, or maybe both, but we're totally confused about all that. She's fun anyhow! We are also getting more people visitors, so that is neat because some wear shoes with laces that we like to chew on... something our nanny doesn't seem to do... for some strange reason.

Jan 18: 7 weeks old already! Where did the time go??? The pups received their combination vaccines yesterday, and played "show dog" for the camera. What a nice bunch! They've also been enjoying a lot more outdoor time, despite being a bit chilly. Next on the agenda will be live pigeons!

Update Sunday pm Jan 18: No problem with birdiness (live pigeons)-- scared the first one right out of his feathers, lol! :)

January 25: This week was the biggie-- they are 8 weeks old today! The pups had CERF (eye) exams done on Weds in Pasco-- all clear. On Friday, they had well checks and microchips done and that went fine as well. I had house guests in from Wednesday thru Sunday visiting and selecting puppies. By Sunday afternoon, I am down to just 2 pups--- my keeper "Envy" (white girl) and Green boy who is waiting for a plane ticket to his hunt test home back east! Nap time for me...it's been a zoo around here! :p

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