3 Days old

Puppies are now 3 days old.  They are doing great and growing.  The girl weighed in at 9.2 oz and the boy at 7.8 oz. I'm pretty sure all the girl does is eat!
 
Spryte is doing well too.  She has started to leave for short periods of time to go outside and play fetch.  I'm sure she is happy to stretch her legs and really run. 

Pictures from today:

boy

 

girl

 

boy on left, girl on right

 

 

Puppies Have Arrived!

I'm excited that once again I get to raise a litter of Sheltie puppies and document the experience here on this blog! 

It all began Saturday morning when Spryte's temperature dropped to 98.4 and she refused her breakfast.  Both strong indications that puppies where on their way soon.  By 11:00am Spryte was going into labour with the first puppy arriving somewhere around noon (although with all the excitement I could be off on my timeline). 


It never ceases to amaze me how innate motherhood is for Spryte.  As the puppy was being born she
immediately began to clean the puppy and care for it right away.   She pushed blankets around her to keep her warm and dry her off.  She was attentive to her from the moment she appeared in this world.  Two more puppies followed, a girl and then a boy, and it was the same for each one. Spryte stayed with them non stop for the first day.  She refused to leave their side.  When we could finally coax her away for a bathroom break she would do her stuff quickly and then run to the door barking and whining to get back
 to her babies as quickly as possible.  Spryte is an excellent mom and she seems to love motherhood.

Our excitement for our new litter began to turn to anxiety early Sunday morning when it became clear that the small female wasn't doing well.  She was weak, was having trouble eating and wasn't behaving like a normal puppy. She seemed to lack that rooting/orienting behaviour that helps a puppy find mom.  Mostly she would just roll on her side and cry.  It was horrifying to watch the puppy decline so quickly.  We did all that you can do with a newborn puppy. We kept her warm, tried to help her eat, gave her subcutaneous fluids, even some corn syrup for energy.  Nothing helped.  She got limper, and started to gasp for breath.  She rapidly got worse until about 2pm she passed away.  Paul and I were heartbroken.  A life so young that never had a chance to live.  It just didn't seem fair.  We are both aware that this happens, often with no apparent cause (in fact something like 30% of puppies don't  make it through their first week of life) but it doesn't make it any easier.  In the end we buried her in the agility field. It seemed fitting for a Sheltie puppy.

It is now Monday afternoon and Spryte and the two remaining puppies are doing great. The two
puppies are strong and healthy, they eat often and behave like happy normal puppies.  The girl today weighed in at 8.1 oz and the boy at 7.1oz.  They are a good size and growing.  So despite our tragic Sunday, Monday is full of joy and hope.  The puppies bring smiles to our faces each time we watch them feed or nestle into Spryte. It truly is an amazing thing to raise a litter of puppies, and I feel very blessed with our little family.

Below are some videos from today.  In the second and third photo above, the puppy closest to Spryte is the boy.  The picture above, Spryte is nudging the girl.

Happy Birthday Strider

Happy Birthday Strider! (Well one day late anyway)  You are 11 years young. Love you little man :)

VTCH for Spryte

I'm excited to announce that Spryte has been awarded the Versatility Champion title through the Association of Working Shetland Sheepdogs.  For the champion title Spryte needed titles in at least 4 different sports and at least 23 points accumulated  (each title level is given a point value, higher titles have higher point values).  Good girl Spryte!

Advanced NoseWork Workshop

The president of the Sporting Detection Dog Association, Karin Apfel, was in town last week working at The Masters horse show.  I caught wind of her arrival on Facebook and immediately emailed enquiring about some Nosework lessons while she was in town.  Lucky for me Karin had time for a private lesson with Strider and I, and a mini group session with myself and the graduates from my last advanced Nosework class.

My session with Strider was last Thursday evening at Spruce Meadows.  I was very excited to work in a new and very busy environment and I got to do my first blind hides!  We did four searches. The first two searches were on golf carts lined up in a row (sort of a mini vehicle search), the third search was an SUV and golf carts and the last was an exterior search hidden under a rock in a ditch full of rocks.

Here is what I learnt with Strider:

First off, he is really clear when he has found the "hide".  He does some wonderful nose touches and then goes right into a sit.  It is obvious and I feel confident calling "alert".
Second, Strider can be slow to start.  He often starts by casually walking and half sniffing. He doesn't even look like he is searching.  Once he gets into it, he then works very well.  So Strider needs a very clear start line routine and a bit more time before sending him.  He is too often in "obedience" mode.
Third, I need to stay out of his way.  Karin said I sometimes interfered with his searching by being too close and handling too much.
Fourth he is ready to trial! Or at least that was Karin's opinion.  I was super thrilled to hear that we are on the right track and Strider will be ready for our April trial.

The group session was Sunday night and involved Spryte and four other dogs.  We worked multiple
advanced container searches and a vehicle search.

Here is what I learnt from that session:

First, I have been working both dogs on giving a sit as a formal alert.  In training Spryte seemed
stronger at it than Strider, but in the workshop she forgot the sit most of the time and was doing multiple nose touches instead.  There is nothing wrong with the nose touches, and that is what she learnt first.  But I was working on teaching the formal alert as a training challenge for myself.  It was clear from the sessions that Spryte  needs more work with the behaviour chain of : find the source, nose target, then sit.
 I think she was overly excited and reverted back to the behaviour she learnt first.  The sit will come, it just needs more work.
Second, Spryte really understands the job!  She is focused ahead on the job and instantly goes to work when cued to "search".  She loves nosework and wants to find the hide NOW.  If she doesn't find it instantly she starts to stress a bit.  She needs to work progressively harder searches so she gets used to working for longer periods of time.
A few other general training tips: Vary the material that hides are found in.  Leather, metal, cloth, cardboard etc.  Some dogs find strong odours like leather offensive and they are reluctant to get close and smell it (leather purses for example).
Vary the patterns for containers. Try shapes likes circles, squares, zig zags.
Always get the dogs to check the gas hatch on vehicles!

That is about if for now.  Below are a few videos of Spryte from the seminar. Unfortunately I don't have any of Strider as I was alone that day and didn't have anyone to video.

updates

August is for holidays!  We have been away most of the month enjoying the wonderful sunny weather in Kelowna and Fairmont B.C. The dogs have been lucky enough to enjoy lots of boating, walking, ball fetching and just plain lazing around in the sun.  A few more days of this and then we are back home and getting ready for fall classes.

As you all know Spryte was bred to Dylan the first weekend in August.  We are now pretty sure the breeding took and she is about 3 weeks pregnant.  Spryte has been off her food the last few days, a pretty sure sign that she is "with pup" :)  So princess Spryte has been treated to lots of scrambled eggs and yogurt.  Hey whatever works! 

Both "Dylan" and his owner are brand new to agility, and they competed in their first AAC agility trial last weekend.  Dylan was confident and speedy with lots of great distance.  I am even more excited (if that is at all possible) for the litter after seeing Dylan in action.  His videos are below.  Well that is about all the updates right now.  Enjoy the videos.

Change of Plans and RIP Kloee

There have been several "change of plans" around here the last few weeks. It all stems from Spryte coming into season a week ago. It was sudden and unexpected. She had been on a 7 months cycle so I wasn't expecting her in until September at the earliest. So we had planned on attending the AAC National Championships this coming weekend and the UKI Nationals end of August in Edmonton.  She also only needs one more snooker Q for her ATCh and I was looking forward to finishing that too!  I was ready and excited to enter these big events and test our skills against the best in Canada.  And then the night before we were supposed to leave on holidays to Kelowna for a week and I noticed blood on Spryte. Well that just changed everything!
   So we have withdrawn from the big events and now breeding plans have taken over plans for competition.  The other big change of plans around here is the stud dog we are using. Originally it was supposed to be Flash, an amazing agility dog owned by friends of mine.  But a few weeks ago the breeder of Spryte and Strider (my mentor) had voiced concerns that Flash might not be a good match for Spryte after all.  I wasn't too concerned at the time, thinking I had lots of time to find a mate for her.  We discussed a few dogs, but one in particular peeked my interest.  This dog was "Dylan" (Ch, BPIG CanyonView Free Wheelin SJATD RN) from CanyonView Shelties. I had done some mild inquiries about him from people who knew him, but had not yet contacted Brenda Newlove the owner of Dylan.

   With the sudden heat cycle I was now in a bit of a panic!  I emailed Brenda at midnight on the night
I was leaving, hoping that I could meet Dylan (lucky for me they live in Kelowna), get more information on him and his lines and if everything seemed to fit then arrange to use him as stud.  Well I often think things happen for a reason.  And so far the whole breeding seems to be fitting perfectly into place.  Brenda got back to me right away and we went out for a visit to meet  Dylan and Brenda. Brenda is a very knowledgeable, long time breeder of Shetland Sheepdogs, and her dogs are wonderful.  They are very outgoing, happy and confident. Like myself, Brenda also strongly believes in all round dogs and good temperaments.  So her dogs are training and competing in rally obedience and agility and they are certified Saint Johns Ambulance Therapy Dogs.
  We will start breeding this Thursday and do three breedings, two days apart. So everyone keep their fingers crossed that all goes well and we have a nice healthy litter of puppies born beginning of October.

On a very sad note, it is probably time that I announced the passing of our Labrador Retriever Kloee ( Hotchoklit's Kloee Kisses CD RE RAMCL RL2 RNT AGIS AADC SGDC CGN).  She passed away three weeks ago from a spleen tumor that had erupted.  We never knew she was sick.  Right up until the day before she was swimming, playing, eating popcorn, generally acting like a happy and normal dog.  And then that night she was wobbly, couldn't walk, was weak.  We brought her in to a clinic the next day, ran some tests and she was then diagnosed with her fatal condition.  She had severe internal bleeding and there was nothing we could do.  We had to let her go. She would have been 11 years old in August.  It was tough, tragic and so unexpected.  Our only consolation was that she never suffered and never felt any pain. She lived her life to the fullest right until the very last day.  Even her last moments were not painful, she was only sleepy and out of it.
RIP Kloee, we miss you and hope you are chasing a ball, while splashing through streams on the other side of the rainbow bridge.
(all pictures in this post are of Kloee)