Joan of Arc

Thanks Sway, great effort, it was pretty miserable here today hope it wasnt too bad there for you all.

One of the best signs is the change in moods - is she sooky-la la? Having said that some girls are like that anyway but our girls generally get a bit sooky la la at about 3 - 4 weeks. Look for the change in nipples - size, colour, hair loss etc. And the thickening is a bit hard to describe in some ways - I look for that double tummy effect around the last rib that comes at about 4 weeks. If she was mated so many times over so many days then I would wait until the 5 week mark from the ultimate or pentultimate mating. I usually know by then (or am relatively confident) and am going to confirm for my own mental health - and with a maiden bitch if you have a ruogh number then you know how your bitch is going. I would hate to have my girl 'pack up shop' so to speak with 6 babies and not know there were two more to come - JMHO. Go agian in two weeks.

Put them outside after frosts etc have lifted, in ayard with a kennel for protection - feed them out there, next to the kennel and they will soon learn to head towards the kennel. Bring them in before the cold air settles but as they get older you can leave them out for longer and longer.

Can anyone tell me whose Goldie it was please and perhaps some other Group 3 results.

Me too, I think its fantastic. Congratulations to you all and I too am off to find Sway's page, but I havnt seen it before. Now, tell me I am bored, or anal or something but I took my girl to the vets today to weigh her. I wanted to use the same scales evertime - she tends to carry a bit extra and we have to work hard to keep it off so trying to be a bit on the wall with weight gain. So last Monday at 5 weeks she was weighed 29.9kg and told to expect a at least 8 pups. Today she weighed in at 31.3kg. gain of 1.4kg. One of the new vets at the surgery passed by and commented that he thougth it was a bit too much gain. As I was leaving our vet, the owner of the practice arrived and we commented to him. He took one look at her and said 'no problems'. So ladies (oh and gents) what do you consider a normal or ok weight gain for your breed?

;)

Our older girl always takes 14 months to come into season after her litters

Congratulations Kanati

Congratulations karlmore

Yay Monteba and the day before our Labs. A busy two or three days ahead.

quote name='rajacadoo' date='20th May 2010 - 09:56 AM' post='4545770'] Finally got to book my girl in for her U/S, next Monday at 0930hrs . Longest 4 weeks of my life ;) ...

I was thinking exactly the same thing BBJ, have you had an U/S? do you know how many babies to expect.

Thanks Hesapandabear We have a lovely big whelping box that OH made a few years ago, which is sealed for easy cleaning. We have a water bed heating pad that covers half the size of the box, so the bitches can get off the heating if they want / need to. It will be very cold here for winter puppies, its already down to zero at night. Puppies will be born in the family room and then after the first two or three nights the box will be moved to the laundry which is still inside and runs off the family room. We will leave the gas heating on all night and for the first week the heating pad. But one of us will be sleeping within ear shot of the box and will be aware of cold or over heated babies. Cant do more than that. I still believe its prefereable to have winter babies here than summer babies. As I commented this week to the sire's owner -"you can always warm someone up, but when its 42 its hard to cool down"

As a Lab person, some of my immediate questions would include, what are his bloodlines? Has he been shown/trialled and with what results? What are his hip / elbow scores? Is he PRA clear? Does he have a current eye certificate for things OTHER THAN PRA? Has he been tested for EIC? Has he been used before and I would be looking for details of any progeny? There would be even more questions to follow...

Yesterday my little girl lumbered around the ring at Temora to get BCC and RUBOB - still short of points for her title but we'll get them later. Today we had our ultrasound to discover 8 babies. No wonder she was trudging!!

;) ;) Congratulations Ann and Miller. What a great result for you.

As secretary of our club I tried to alter the order of judging as much as I could over the two day shows. Plus I tried to look at what groups went where at the previous show in our area. But that's really hard sometimes when you are doing your draft schedule for DogsNSW

;) :p

Poor Blossom, a weekend away in the big smoke turned into a weekend in the hoosegow (sp?). Glad all are ok and returning home safe and sound

Extremely frustrating isnt it? I am no expert on behaviour modification and there are plenty of people on here who are better qualified to help than me. However we have gundogs and its essentially in thier nature to 'work' and that includes the sniffing. The only thing that we could do in the end was to reinforce the 'leave it' command. And so that's what we have to do in the ring, as soon as the head looks like going down, a quick tug and 'leave it'. The minute the head comes up - bridge and reward. Practice at home every day and every time you walk, sorry I cant be much more help.

Thanks!! This is my very first litter.. Oh how exciting, we will all follow your girl then with much more interest and excitement. I can smell all that puppy breath already.

What wonderful news that she has been found and assume safe and well. Good news for all concerned

Hi nynka, fortunately for us our neighbours were as pro-active as us in our search. We discovered at 11pm that someone had opened our side gates and began searching then. we searched until 3 in the morning - when we cld no longer stay awake. We began again at 5:30 the next morning with flyers and driving - as a school teacher I knew many of the local high school kids and I stopped a couple of school buses and asked teh kids if they'd seen 3 Labs running together. In teh end we received a phone call from an elderly lady using a school students mobile to say they had seen them on teh golf course. when I arrived there at 9 in the morning every one was combing the golf course searching for them. Luckily for us they were found romping in the dam on the golf course. No injuries, although one 9mth old bitch did yield higher hip scores than her sister and the vet maintains she may have over strained in her romping. So we were lucky - overnight only

I can imagine how devastated and panic striken they are. We lost our girls three years ago when someone let them out and we were beside ourselves. I do hope she is found soon. I have passed this info on to all the 'doggy' people I know - I hope that was ok.