piper

Jazz put on 8 - 9kg and had 9 puppies, I never measured her girth though, never really thought of it and went with vet clinics theory of what they saw on ultrasound plus or minus 1 or 2. LOL. And they were right, he said 8 or 9. We got to 8, thought that was all, laid down for a snooze as she was settled with them and woke up to her pushing for number 9.

Sway, do you want some of older pups wearing them to show how they grow with the pup? If so I can get some pics over the next couple of days of 6 week olds in them.

I'm not sure piper, show bred are generally bigger than race bred so not much guidance there. Fern did a good job She certainly did! I hope it goes well, I know how hard you work with 9 but I also know how much fun it is. I love getting home and sitting down to puppies everywhere

Wow, some big pups there Rebanne, especially when she had so many. What would the average birth weight be for greyhounds?

Congratulations Rebanne!! Poodlesrule - you have my sympathy, I have pups that like a 3am play session too!!

TLC - I used to think the same. Right now I am quite looking forward to them going. They scream - ALOT (well alot tonight and I don't know why, no different to last night or the night before when they didn't scream) They are little houdinis and escape everything, they poo lots. I made the comment when they were 2 or 3 weeks old that I can see why they are so cute - it is so you don't kill them for 3am screaming sessions (which they have fortunately got over) They are fun as well but I really will look forward to life returning to normal and I think the other dogs will too. I can't see how some people have so many litters - they take so much time and effort, I am exhausted and still have 3 weeks to go. Tonight I need to trim 18 nails on 9 puppies (and I wish I hadn't done the maths on that last time I was trimming them, lol) Clicking Mad - love that shot of Lotus.

Can you just pop him in a crate and shut that in your bedroom? Or have him go to a family members for the night. Worst case scenario, as it is only 1 night would be a boarding kennel. Don't Fret pet would have been my other suggestion, other than that I only know of house sitters.

TLC - I don't!! The house work is sadly lacking and I have puppy buyers visiting from mid week so am going to be racing around the next day or so after work making things presentable.

Argh I had just typed a reply and not sure what I did but it is gone now. grrr Ok, here is last weeks pic of Jazz - not being as milk bar. She is now onto teaching the puppies to play. And this week - I can't decide. either a reluctant milk bar: " Or looking on: "

Oh I didn't think you could get it in SA, I had always been told it was illegal to sell unbleached. How much does it cost?

So cute SparkyTansy!! I have to say nothing improves a bad day at work more than coming home, sitting on the floor of the puppy pen and being mobbed by 9 playful puppies. Jazz has started playing with them which is so cute to watch.

If you watched Ann working Jinnie and twist then you were most likely watching Advanced. For started, after the outrun and lift oyu can basically walk anwhere but into the fenceline obstacles. There would have been 3 markers down the centre of the course (assuming we are talking A course with all of this of course), you set the dog at the centre marker and you can walk along the centre line to the fmarker closest to the sheep, you then send your dog to pick up the stock and bring them to you and you start walking up and around the furthest cone and then to the obstacles. In intermediate you have some handler and restrictions and in advanced you stand at the C marker cone for the majority. Hope that clarifies. the ANKC herding rules can be downloaded from the ANKC webpage. They can be a bit confusing at times but do explain the course and different levels fairly well.

I am lucky - 90% of wee and poo occurs in the area I designated for it And outside they mostly stay on the concrete but have notived they walk off onto the dirt to go. Not sure how you go with older pups but I noticed by 3 weeks that it was 1 corner of the whelping box they were going in so I placed a square of cheap astro turf there. left it there for a week and then placed it just outside the box with a cheap pee mat (got them from a cheap shop and they are good for the price at absorbing lots) and I put newspaper down at that point over almost all of the area outside of the box. Within a few days they were barely going in the box at all, motly on the pee mat and the rest on the new newspaper. Each time I cleaned the room I put a bit less paper down, starting at the side opposite to the whelping box. Now we have more than half the floor without paper and 2 small astro turf mats with pee pads under them. The whelping box is consistantly dry, they toilet mostly on the mats or the paper immediately surrounding them (! poo just off the paper today) and they do not play and walk through it. I modified a house training plan I read on a webpage that someone posted here. The way they have picked it up has been fantastic.

Thanks guys. It was a bit of a buzz. Sherlot - we had 7 in started A today which was fantastic for here plus 1 in intermedaiet and 5 on started B (only 2 were also on A course) so it was quite pleasing. Piper managed her B course pass on sheep today so was 3 from 3 for the weekend. Unfortunately she is extremely lame tomight so I am not sure we will try B sheep again. It was fun though, I enjoyed it.

Well done on the HIT Sherlot. Janba is right we have a big brag. Tday I had my old girl entered in A course advanced on ducks at oru double trial. Jazz was stuck at home on puppy duties. Anyway, Piper is 10 and gets very limited opportunities to trial. I had not been going to enter her in advanced and retired her after intermediate then we did a training day and I gave her a go at advanced and she coped, so we decided with encouragement to give it ago. So today were our thrid and fourth attempts at advanced and brought up our advanced title with 2 High in Trial scores. She worked so well and even took an inside flank without fighting me in the second run. I wish we had it videoed. And I will admit to a tear or 2 when I came out of the arena, I am so proud of my girl who ALWAYS tries her best and will have a go at anything I ask of her. She may not be as stylish a worked as Jazz and we have had many an "argument" over the right way to do things out there but I just love her attitude to work. Piper has become the first dog in SA to gain each title on ducks. On sheep she was the first ANKC registered dog to title. She is still the only ANKC registered dog to title on any stock type beyond started level and 1 of only 2 dogs in SA to have an advanced title, the other is a working border that belongs to my old trainer. I know that to some these are small brags, but herding is a very small sport in SA that took a long time to get going so opportunities to trial were few and far between, add to that my judging s I miss some of the few trials we have each year and our herding trainer moved off his property 3 years ago so we have had no regular access to stock since. Piper has trained on ducks twice since last August. Tomorrow Piper will run in the inaugural B course in SA, it seems fitting - she ran in the first ever A course trial on sheep as well as on ducks several years later. I don't hold out much hope for it as she has worked sheep less than she has ducks over the last 3 years but I know she will enjoy it and so will I.

Well I think Jazz is nearly dried up. We made it to 4 weeks with just a bit of solids at night from 3 weeks for my sanity so I could sleep. The last day or 2 though she is not keen to go in there, her boobs are quite "deflated" and they are quite whingy. So I have upped them to 2 meals per day and they are a bit happier with that, it has seen the end of Jazz doing all of the clean up though. She still gets some,, just not all. But then 9 puppies is a lot of cleaning!! The little buggers worked out how to escape the room this evening so it is time to rearrange their room again. I think I will start them outside during the day next week as I don't think Jazz is feeding them anymore anyway and they really need more room to run and explore.

I know a few people South of the city that go there. I really liked his manner with the dogs and would happily see him if I lived closer for all things, not just repro work. Eta: he reminds me of a young version of the vet I had for years and loved who retired.

There is a vet that works through Marion Small Animal Hospital and Southern that has an interest in repro - Dion Humbler (I think that is his last name). He assisted with Jazz and we got 9 puppies... I did get all the progesterone tests done out at Noahs Crossing though and went on Chris's recommendation of when to mate. Dion shows and breeds as well.

I thought Moo Goo was ph neutral? it is an all natural product that is good for sensitive skin so if it is ph neutral should be fine for dogs as well as the whole ph thing would be irrelevant then. it has to be a lot less harsh than many dog shampoos available.

Looking lovely Skyehaven. My guys are 3.5 weeks and had some outside adventures over the weekend. They were not so keen but by their third trip out today they were starting to explore and play. It certainly started to show who the more confident pups were. They are going well with some solids of an evening before bed time and today had a littl bit at lunch time as well. Jazz is increasingly less keen to feed now that their are 9 hungry mouthes with sharp teeth and they can barely fit at the milk bar anyway.

I am a day late with laat weeks photo. I had heaps of photos - just no good 1s of Jazz. So I got this pic this morning, unfortunately over exposed but I still like it. The milk bar has gone mobile....

Another thing to consider with HT and PT is the dog's working style. Some dogs do not like the smaller space the HT is on or have so much presence that they are better in a larger area in which case skip the HT, spend the time doing the extra training and go straight for PT. I didn't do HT with Jazz as she did not like small spaces and likes to work wide, making her work in that space would have taken far mre work with her than getting ready for the PT did. As she gained skills and confidence her confidence to work in close also increased but PT was definitely much easier for us in the early stages. the videos linked in the other thread are my girl doing her PT and show a reasonable effort at it (excpe the bits where I stuffed her upm but that is usually the way . LOL) As Sherlot said though they are pass/fail we are looking to see basic skills demonstrated and tick a box for each of them as yes/no. There is no loss of points and you will not fail if you lose control of your stock, provided you can bring it back under control (stop your dog, let the sheep settle then go back to your sheep and carry on) and the dog is not just wildly circling, chasing/harassing or blocking the stock from moving. The other thing with tests is there is no style required - you can drive or fetch, it is the passage of the stock being looked at.

I didn't even know this thread was here and find Jazz's videos linked. Thanks Ness. OMG they were ratty, poor dog also had a handler who forgot their directional commands and stuffed up the pen well and truly because of it, lol.

Cassie, for breed days you can request who you are benched with but only within your breed. Sunday is just grab a bench - they do not allocate.

How convenient of them to put both your breeds on the same day Lyndsay!