Laureate Shelties Blog
A bit of this, a bit of that...with a lot of free spirits.
Miley (BPIS Ch Laureate Epitome) had a new litter of two girls on the 11th of April sired by Ch Ruffleith's Barolo Di Rionda.
They are thriving and doing well.
The red girl was hungry and spent the photo shoot looking for food..
Got milk?
If either girl is available as a companion, we'll post news when they are eight weeks of age.
While we were on holiday our good friend Diane whelped our Inception x Jivara litter. There are three girls (pictured) and a male who will wait until he is bigger before he makes his debut.
Diane nicknamed the girls "the three little pigs" I like to think because they are fat and healthy and not because they have pink noses.
All that eating makes you tired!
Nap time...
When Eva's puppies were born we were struggling to keep the two girls alive and the tri boy was also weak. We were lucky there was a Sheltie in the area that had delivered a litter the same day and when I called my friend Diane needing help, she came over and picked up the tri boy and a blue boy and delivered them to Liz and her unsuspecting foster mom "Savanna".
Savanna was out when they were put in the the box with the other two puppies. When Savanna came in to see her puppies Diane and Liz said she did a double take as suddenly there were twice as many!
Liz supplemented the tri boy for several days and then he started nursing strongly. He is now larger than the blue boy and almost the same size as his foster sister (sadly one of Savanna's puppies didn't make it).
It is tiring posing for pictures...
...very tiring!
...so sleepy
Liz's little bi blue girl. She is a sweetie.
The three pups. The Eva pups will remain until after they are weaned and then at the end of the month they'll meet up with the four siblings. It will be an interesting reunion.
The four Eva puppies we are raising here. The tri male and a blue male are at a fellow breeders home being fostered by another female, "Savanna" who whelped the same day as Eva. With seven newborns, I was struggling with the two smaller girls and I was worried I'd lose them. Savanna after the initial double take when she came back to the box and wondered how her brood had doubled in size has taken them in and mothering them as her own.
The blue boys are all doing well and gaining weight. Our friend says the other two boys are fat and content as well.
Bi-blue boy on the bottom...
The little girl on the other hand isn't nursing well and so I've been supplementing her with a bottle and tube feeding her as well. The tri girl unfortunately didn't make it. It is sometimes difficult being a breeder.
They are lovely puppies...looking forward to seeing the other two fellows...they will be back in a few weeks.
Valerie held off until after Pete's birthday party to have her litter. The down side was she waited until 1:30 am to have her first puppy and was done by 6:30...so it was an all nighter. A textbook whelping, she could have done it all without my help, but I was there to welcome the newborns by weighing them in and removing dewclaws.
We have four new boys and a girl
The girl is second from the left
Pile of pups...I think the girl is now top right with the brown right leg (I'm still getting familiar with them)
The boys
Girl on the bottom
Another few hours spent in pursuit of photo records of our puppies. I find it necessary to set their ears, groom them completely as if they were an adult going to a show and take photos at about eight weeks to get an idea of what we have. Pete and I have done this from our very first litter. Prior to setting the ears, I'd place them all as pets!
So this is the blue boy, yet to be named. He is a beauty, and has only improved as time has gone on. He is not large, being in the lower half of the safe zone on the chart. He didn't like me much a few weeks ago and so I made him my project. I brought him upstairs with one of his sisters and would feed him chicken
wieners and cheese. The
light bulb went on right away!
Since his excursions upstairs, he thinks I'm the bees knees. He is very adoring and makes eye contact constantly. He is pretty adorable...:-)
A bit of a lean going on here...
Such a pretty face!
This one is pretty close to perfection in my view
Back to the point I was making about doing their ears and grooming. This morning this gals ears had come undone and were hanging. She looked like a
coonhound...and I said to my friend we have three show prospects plus a brood bitch. Did her ears, bathed and chalked her and gave her a head trim and she amazed me. She is more than I'm used to, but not really overdone. Her size is still fine, measuring 9 3/8 (nine weeks tomorrow). Shows to go you...
Very full muzzle and a one piece head
I'm glad we persevered with Eva and gave her one last chance. I'll be forever grateful to Jennie
Hynes for her efforts in getting her bred to her beautiful stud dog.
It is going to be VERY busy around here this spring!
We finally got around to taking pictures of some of the Eva puppies. This is the litter by GCh Rosmoor Protocol ROM x Laureate Longoria. We place two beautiful black boys, and are growing out four for now. We only did up two of them, but hope to get pictures of the other two shortly.
This is the stunning blue girl we are calling "Eden". Her registered name will be Laureate Everlasting.
She is the smallest, and has been so kitten like I almost called her "Kitty"... (Eden is better)
There was a haze over the sun, but she didn't need sunshine to sweeten her eye. She isn't all sugar and spice though...she loves to beat up her blue brother. Interestingly she will also curl up next to him. She appears to know they are the same colour. Today after being fluffed up I put her on the floor and she got "stuck" in the mirror. She was totally in love with her reflection! :-)
This one just doesn't take a bad picture...
We took pictures of "Sushi" shortly after. It had become overcast, and the temperature was minus 11C. She shivered, bunched herself up and basically didn't want to participate. We snapped a few pics, but weren't happy with the results and brought her back in to have a nap. A few hours later the sun came out and I said to Pete we ought to try again. This time it was like, no problem...I know what you want. She posed and was a star!
I tell that story for the people who think we do something magical to make them stay. Sometime it just doesn't work and you have to take a break and do it another time. I also include this photo which wasn't cropped to show that we use things to get their attention. I lost my large turkey feather that I used in the past, so I improvised and found an dried sedum in the garden and waved it around...I also used my gloves for some shots.
We think these girls are coming along nicely and showing a lot of promise.
Her off side has all the flash...
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