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.

Here we go

I will start with some very sad news, unfortunately, just after I posted the last pics of Rhubarb, Custard and Cecil, we lost Rhubarb in a freak fatal accident. There are no words to describe how shocked and upset the whole family has been. She has, rather fittingly, been buried under our rhubarb plants in the garden.

On a much brighter note, her siblings have become complete monsters and despite the warmer weather that we have been enjoying, no one seems to want to wear shorts as they have entered the 'legs are climbing frame' phase.

Tibb's kittens now have their eyes open, they were a week old yesterday and are growing well. They have been christened Harry, Ron and Hermoine.

Dime is now entering the last week of her pregnancy. She definitely looks pregnant now, though she is not as big as I thought she might get, her tummy rounded very early so I thought she may have very large numbers, I now feel that she will have a more reasonable sized litter. As is customary in our household we have all had a guess at numbers, I reckon 8, Graham (who is not known for his optimism or his ability to guess correctly!) has gone for 4 and Emily thinks 7.

Nina has slotted into our routines very easily, (though she feels that she shouldn't have to sleep on dog beds when there is space on the sofa!). She was mated yesterday and will be mated again tomorrow, then we shall play the waiting game again.

Busy Day

My plan for today was to get up fairly early in order to walk the dogs, before collecting one of Audrey's first puppies, Nina, from her owners in Wales. Tibbs decided that was not quite how my day was going to go as she was in full labour when I got up.
Tibbs managed to produce 3 beautiful babies, the last one arriving 10 minutes before I was due to set off on my journey, well done Tibbs :-) I am fairly sure that we have 2 black boys and one chocolate girl.

The reason I have collected Nina is because she was sold on breeding terms, which basically means that she was a puppy that I really wanted to keep, so she was sold on the proviso that I could have her back for one litter of puppies, to a boy of my choice. After her maternal duties have finished she will return to her owners. She is in season now so will be mated in a week or so, she will then stay here until the pups are ready to leave home. She is a small but beautiful girl who moves like a dream, I can see a lot of Rhonda in her.

Dime is now 6 1/2 weeks pregnant and is blooming. So looking forward to meeting these babies

9 Weeks seems such a long time

Dime is now approx 5 1/2 weeks pregnant, she is starting to really fill out now so I suspect she has a good amount of puppies in there. She is very fit and well, exercising as normal and eating with real enthusiasm. Pups should arrive around the 2nd of June and as in previous years, the webcam will be running to cover the birth and 1st few weeks of the pups.

Bobs kittens are just fabulous, they are everything a Devon kitten should be, nosey, greedy, lively and then when the batteries finally start to run down, they use your leg as climbing frames so that they can plonk themselves on a comfy lap, head or shoulder so that they can take a nap! All 3 of these babies are now reserved.

Tibbs is our next mum to be, she is due at the end of next week. I think she has more than one in there (at least I hope so, or she will be going on a very serious diet!).

Yes and No

Today I took Dime and Spirit to be scanned. Dime is definitely in pup, with lot of little blobs seen on the screen. The pups are due on or around the 2nd June :-)

Unfortunately Spirit has missed this time, but we will try her again on her next season when I shall try her with Morse. Those who are still interested in a phantom pup, please keep in contact as it is possible that I will have some phantom pups from an apricot daughter of Audrey this summer.