Puppies are like busses.....

You don't have any for ages, then suddenly two litters come along almost together :-) This week Nina was scanned and is confirmed pregnant. Should everything go to plan (stop laughing!) Nina should have her pups a couple of days after Dimes pups set off for their new homes, which is the end of July.

Cecil and Liberty (Custard) leave for pastures new this week, we are going to miss these affectionate babies.

Tibb's kittens are growing at a pace now, they are really enjoying their food and are fast becoming little tearaways.

Margo, Sybil's kitten that we kept last year, is off on her honeymoon. She is visiting a rather handsome black smoke boy, so very excited to see kittens from this mating, just got to keep fingers crossed that she starts calling again as unfortunately the long (5hr) journey stressed her out and she came off call on arrival, thankfully she is being allowed to stay for a few weeks to maximise her chances of pregnancy.

3 Weeks old, and they're out

Puppies are now starting to be a bit more entertaining (though they still sleep/eat 95% of the time), I now let them toddle around the lounge whilst I clean their pen in the morning, and then again for a few minutes at other times during the day. They are finding the slippery floor a bit of a challenge, but are certainly enjoying being out. They are quite a vocal litter, and their growls and barks are just so funny, though I'm not so sure that I will be quite so amused when they start doing it at 5am.
Normally I would start them on solids at this stage, but they have had a few days of upset tummies, which we now appear to have sorted with a bit of protexin, so I will just give them another 48 hrs before giving their tummies any further work. They have remained very bright and well despite their loose tummies.
I have attached a few pics taken today, as always there are many more pics from the last week on flickr.com (link on the right of this page) including both litters of kittens

2 weeks today

As the title suggests, the pups are two weeks old today, and they are coming along in leaps and bounds. Pink collar was the first to open her eyes, with most of the others following suit the next day, yellow girl is the last to open her with just a small quint visible this morning. Of course now that they have some vision (it will still be very blurry at this point) they can now gauge where the milk bar is, and have already started to realise that there is life beyond the box, as others have already predicted, I think red boy will be the first to breach the walls! I have one boy who is not yet spoken for.

It has been a bit of a juggling game this week, Dime is still not entirely comfortable with the other dogs being in the lounge with her pups, so at the moment we are only allowing a couple in at a time in a shift pattern, Miss Tibb's kittens (Ron, Harry and Hermione) are also in the lounge and they are just starting to want to explore, which means further juggling, on top of this Tiffany is in season so has to be kept separate from the main pack. Oh well, it keeps things interesting :-)

Not forgetting the kittens!

Thought I had better take some pics of Tibb's kittens as Dime and her babies have been hogging the limelight over the last couple of days, so here they are.

                                                                   Cecil and Liberty (Custard) are growing well and will be having their 1st vaccinations in a couple of days.

Just have to give the pups a quick mention, Dime is proving to be a wonderful mum and all the pups are growing fast. They are now wearing collars so that I can start to see characters as they develop, the girls are sporting the pink, pale green and purple collars, the boys are decked out in blue, pale blue and red. Due to unforeseen circumstances there is one boy available, please contact me for further details should you be interested.

What a lovely family :-)

Dime has had her pups, after what seemed like the longest 1st stage of labour ever, she produced her 1st pup, a boy, at 9pm last night. Poor girl was a bit surprised when he arrived and she did panic for a few seconds, but then her maternal instinct kicked in and she breezed through the rest of the whelping.
There were a couple of worrying moments, 2 of the pups were slow to breathe, but with a little bit of assistance they were soon squeaking away and joining their siblings. Dime is a fabulous mum, attentive without being paranoid (although she did want to abandon her family this morning when she heard me put the others in the car for a walk!) and I have no doubt that her 6 pups will be beautifully brought up by her.

We have 3 girls and 3 boys, all these pups are already booked and I can only apologise to those who were further down the list and who have missed out this time. Some of you may want to consider having a blue baby from Nina, the father will be Cash. We hope to confirm her pregnancy at the end of this month.

The webcam followed the whelping last night, and will be on every day/evening for the next few weeks. Just go to the webcam page on the Itzapromise website, or go direct to Justin TV and look up Itzapromise.

They're coming :-)

Dime went into the early stages of labour yesterday afternoon/evening. Things are progressing nicely, if a little slowly, and hopefully she will have her puppies sometime today. The webcam is up and running, can be accessed via the appropriate page on my website. Pictures will follow once Dime has finished.