Blackthorn Working German Shepherds

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http://blackthorngsd.blogspot.com/

Thanks!

Well, I couldn’t stand to watch the little girl get thinner and thinner. She’s fighting hard to survive, so I’ve started supplementing her with a bottle.

She still weighs less than at birth, so the chance of her making it is slim. I’ve been calling her “Lark”–and it’s really hard not to fall for her when I’m feeding her.

Here’s a few pictures of the last day or two. You can see the size difference–the littlest puppy is around 230 grams in these pictures. The biggest is 454g.

Edit to add: Monday, the littlest girl is up to 240g; her siblings are 550-650.

Puppies are well. I’m a bit worried about the littlest girl. She’s lost a little bit of weight and seems a smidge dehydrated. I gave her a cc or two of a warm water/Nutrical mixture. I was hoping that would perk her up. She seemed to like drinking it, and I think most of it went down her, but she’s not nursing right now, just sleeping. Ohhh… she just woke up and is working toward a nipple! (As I write this, she’s started nursing–so maybe the Nutrical was enough to jumpstart her a bit.) This is where the moral dilemmas come in… I could pretty much ensure her survival for the next few days/weeks by tube feeding her several times a day (although this doesn’t always work if there is something internally malformed). But I’ve now had to euthanize a few puppies at 6 weeks–puppies who were having malnourishment problems. Both of those puppies were saved through my intervention in the first few days or at 3 weeks or so. So, is it better to let nature take its course at this early stage?

At any rate, my policy is to help out, give syringes of water/nutrical to help keep the blood sugar up and minimize dehydration, but she’s got to do the rest of the work of survival. Unless I change my mind…. which I might. It’s hard, this puppy stuff.

(Little sable girl is still nursing well–maybe she just needed that jolt of calories and fluid.)

Here are my notes from this afternoon’s weigh in:

F
sable
8 3/8 oz
239 grams
slightly dehydrated, a little listless and cold

M
bicolor
no white on chest
16 1/5 oz
475 g

M
sable
13.6 oz
389 g
he’s lost weight, seems strong and healthy, however

M
bicolor–maybe black/tan
tiny white star on chest
15 oz
440 g
strong

F
bicolor with wh blaze
14 3/4 oz
419 g

M
bicolor–maybe more black/tan
tiny white star, white toes
15 3/4 oz
435 g

———-
Weights are really hard to pin down because they wriggle on the scale. I’m using ounces b/c that is (1) what I am familiar with (a 16 oz GSD puppy is quite big, a 9 oz puppy is quite small, but I don’t know the equivalent in grams and what to expect of newborns in grams). I’m switching to grams now because it is more accurate and a lot less guesswork in looking at the scale to see if weights are going up vs going down.

Colors
Genetically, the options for this litter are
* sable with a black recessive (Ash was this color)
* sable with a bicolor recessive (Danca’s color)
* bicolor with a black recessive (like Coal)
* bicolor with a bicolor recessive (like Hunter)

(Although it is possible that Danca carries the black and tan recessive with a modifier gene for heavy black coverage–but it’s a lot harder to know and the “experts” disagree about this element of GSD color genetics.)

For the genetics geeks in the audience, color hierarchy in GSDs looks like this:

Sable
Black/tan pattern
Bicolor pattern
Black
White

The shade of the tan/brown/red on the dog is not related to the pattern.
There are also probably some coverage modifiers, so you can have a really light black and tan or a really dark (“blanket back”) or a sable like Frost vs what is called a “black sable.”

If anyone wants, I could post color examples. (Hmm. What I should do is put it up on my website as information for all.)

3:40 am — sable male, 14 oz

5:10 am — bicolor male, 15.5 oz

More to come–but Danca thinks she’s all good, she’s got 2 babies, she’s done. HAHAHAHAA.

She’s doing well–not stressed now she’s got babies to care for. She’s done this all before. She’s very watchful and careful with the pups–she wouldn’t get up and push hard on the 2nd boy until I held the first one safe out of the way. And while she’s pushing, she’s got one eye on the pup in my hands.

Two ninja births, almost twins, while I’m dozing on the futon. I hear her cleaning them and get up to see these two big boys still very wet.

6:45 am (ish) — bicolor male, 15.5 oz, very solid looking, bits of white on the soles of his feet

6:55 am — bicolor male, 15 oz

2-3 more to go. What are the odds the next on will be a girl? 50/50 Come’on little girls!

9:25 am — bicolor girl, 15 oz

Danca is very happy with her brood–she’d like to be done now, kthx.

Ruffian is glued to the edge of the puppy pen–she’s never seen anything so amazing in her life.

9:50 — sable girl, 10 oz

Aww, Danca did good. I’m hoping she’s done now, not sure yet. The last one was the easiest–a little sable girl like mom herself.

The 2 last-born pups are on the right–the sable female and the bicolor female. You can see the size difference–she’s little, but she seems strong and is nursing well. Next to her is the firstborn sable boy–he’s quite solid.

I’ll see about getting more, better, pictures later. I’m going to take a nap right now.

I went for a walk in late September, and I brought the camera to try to get some pictures of the K puppies and of Indy (now named Zeke), who is staying with me (with his “sister” Minnie) while his people are on vacation. These pictures were taken 9/22–the puppies were about 17 weeks old.

I started out this morning by walking the 4 puppies and Hunter and Zeke and Minnie (also boarding with me).

Zeke–previously Indy

Karisma

Kismet

Kiva

Kalibre

Kiva and Kal

On Wednesday, around noon, I looked out the back door for Ash. The sun was out, but it wasn’t hot, and the light was clear in a way that doesn’t happen often in our humid summers. Ash was lying in the shade of the poplar tree. He wasn’t on his side, but lying upright, one hip cocked a bit, and his nose had dipped into the grass, as though he’d fallen asleep while looking about him. He didn’t move when I opened the door, and I kind of drew my breath in and held it. He was gone, I knew, and suddenly, in a sort of shudder in my head, I felt my life shift uncomfortably to fill his space. I saw evening walks without him, I saw myself filling food bowls–but not one for him, I saw his son Coal moving outside of his dad’s shadow. And I thought, *IF* I could have chosen a place and a moment of happiness for you, Ash, this would be it–surveying your domain on a beautiful day. Going quietly without loss of dignity, without discomfort, mobile and active to the end. Just moving on.

I walked out into the yard and sank into a cross-legged position in front of him, and reached a hand out to pet his soft ears…. And he woke up, a bit startled, and looked about him and went to get the Jolly Ball for me to tug with him.

That morning, on our walkabout with all the dogs, he had lagged behind. I knew that something was*wrong*. But his gums looked good, his eyes were clear, he didn’t seem distressed. He did have diarrhea and his stomach seemed distended–but not to an extreme. I went inside and made an appointment for him at the vets–the soonest I could get an appointment was 3:30. He was fine as he got in the car, although for the first time ever, I had to help him get in.

The vet’s exam led to x-rays, which showed his entire colon impacted and the suspicion of a mass in his abdomen. Two vets looked at the x-rays, and they decided they wanted another one. While we waited for the next x-ray, he began vomiting, and he peed unconsciously, and his stomach started swelling up. He began to show signs of pain and discomfort, panting and the veins on his face began to stand out. He lost color in his gums and began to look dehydrated. They took the 3rd x-ray and started a catheter with a pain killer and fluids. The pain killer helped, and he drowsed on the table. He smelled of testosterone-filled urine–he had peed while upside-down getting x-rayed, and it had gotten into the fur around his thighs–and of yeast and old dog. The 3rd x-ray showed his stomach was twisting and loops of bowel swelling with gas. He was facing 2 surgeries now–one for the torsion and one for clearing the impaction. Neither was a safe or fast or easy surgery. The risk of infection from the colon surgery is high. And Ash had already been losing mobility; he had back surgery in 2002, removing a bone chip that had broken off the tip of his sacrum and lodged in his spinal canal. The nerve damage from scar tissue from the surgery had weakened his back end and may even have contributed to the impaction in his bowels.

So, I sat there next to him while he drowsed under the effects of the pain killer, and I made the choice that it would end here, this day. He wouldn’t go home with me. He didn’t get to die in the grass, under the tree, in his own yard. But that is what I am going to hold onto as my last memory of him, nose deep in the grass instead of pressed to the steel of the examination table, sunlight dappled around him, a breeze bringing the smells of honeysuckle and forsythia instead of urine and sour yeast.

Ash was born into my care on February 4, 1997. My first-born puppy. And together we learned about competitive dog training and went to Boston and Austin and Alabama and New Jersey and North Carolina and Tennessee to compete.

He wasn’t a beautiful dog–except when he was working, and then he was gorgeous. He was always eager and always energized. Always willing and strong and overflowing with joy and enthusiasm. He didn’t do things by halves–to be loved by Ash was to be steamrolled. And he talked–he’d sing on request and “purred” when he was petted, and he rubbed against you like a giant cat. And he talked while we worked, while he did his down-stay (to the detriment of our points), while he heeled, while he retrieved; he’d squeal on the send-away and scream on the recall. He had too much drive, too much zest to keep it to himself. There are a lot of pictures of him on my website, at his page.

He made beautiful puppies that went on to become best friends and life savers–4 or 5 of them are doing Search and Rescue work. I have still, to carry on, Coal and Jubilee, and Jedi, too. Ash was a great dog, in his own way. And he gave me everything I could have asked. He’ll never be forgotten.

Goodbye my friend.

Everyone thinks Jack Russells are hyper, but this is a typical view around my house:

The other night, Ruffian came in from the rain and decided to dry herself off. This is what I saw on the sofa:

There’s a Ruffian in there!

The puppies started squeaking so she struggled to free herself so she could see what they were doing:

She is in love with the puppies. As they were being born, I let her smell my hands and she wriggled and bowed and then rolled over with joy at the smell of them and the desire to play with them. It was such a graphic demonstration of the strength of the canine sense of smell… and of her instinctive reaction to puppies (now that she’s older and no longer thinks they’re rodents!).

Here’s her peeking at the puppies from the other angle:

Momma and babies are doing well. Here are some pics of them at about 5 days old, fat and strong and well loved by their mom.

Two of the pups didn’t make it through the first 24 hours, so now there are 4 healthy and strong puppies–1 beautiful red sable male, 1 red sable female, and 2 black sable females.

Poor babies. It’s not unusual to lose puppies shortly after birth, but it’s still quite sad.  More pictures soon!

Well, I think she’s done. Six surviving puppies as of Friday morning, 2 males, 4 females. Four are “black” sables, 2 are very red–one male, one female.

Danca had no trouble with any of them, and she is extremely careful and protective of the babies. Good girl! She ate some breakfast and after some persuasion, allowed me to change the bedding.

So, pictures!!!

A friend took these while I was out of town at a wedding. The quality could be better, but I hope you enjoy them anyway.