Dave’s Ramblings

I quick shot Angel got of our granddaughter holding one of the pups from our recent litter. They are both just adorable, but Smidgy (Jorden to the rest of the world) was named by me, and as soon as I found out it drive my now daughter-in-law crazy, well that was like adding gasoline to the fire Another long story, enjoy the picture.

The puppies are located in south central Wisconsin and are now just over a week old, so they have quite a ways to go before they are ready for their new homes, the has already been forming. We have 5 males and 2 females, 5 of the 7 are tri-colored, meaning black/white/tank or liver/white/tan, and lets face it, English Springer Spaniels are just great pups to have around.

Remember that song as a kid? Hope it gets stuck in your head for at least a few hours

Apparently Tori is trying to teach her pups (just a week old now) what good eating is all about (pictured is a chipmunk). She’s constantly reminding us that she is a natural hunter. Once we get this litter moved on mayhaps this fall I’ll be able to get her out in the back woods with me and do a bit of hunting and see how well she takes to it. I’m guessing she’ll take right too it.

Friday after work I took the baby pups to our vet and bought myself a little education, being English Springer Spaniels they needed their tailed docked and of course have any dewclaws removed. Either I never paid close enough attention before or it’s more common amongst pure breeds that not every pup will have dewclaws, or may have only some. If we decide to breed Tori again we won’t have to bother our vets any more to dock the tails and stuff either. Anyone else ever hear of a vet actually willing to teach a client how to do these things and share all the tips, tricks, and tools to do it all, knowing it means a potential loss of revenue on their part? I will not trust any of our ‘furry children’ to anyone else’s care. We’ve always taken care of all of their shots and stuff, minus rabies since we can’t buy them any more, not sure maybe too many people snorting or injecting the vaccines or something…who knows?

Hunter is still down 11 pounds or so from his usual 60lbs, yet another blood test drawn and we should have the results tomorrow. Crappy Lyme’s disease ridden deer ticks around here nailed him real bad last year, we thought we had it beat, but he went downhill fast earlier this month. 2 weeks of anti-biotics brought down the lumps in his neck and he’s acting a bit more normal, just gotta fatten him back up a bit. So much for getting him started pheasant hunting this year. Got all of the dogs shaved short of Remington (the sire of the current litter), I just haven’t had the time to get him done. With the Front line squirty things and shaving it sure helps with the ticks, one of the downfalls to living out in the boonies I suppose. Haven’t seen one since they were treated, so I know it’s working.

Puppy pics coming tommorrow, Angel is supposed to be forwarding them to me from her laptop so I can post them. Anyone looking for a pup just drop me a note and I’ll pass along our contact info.

I was off by a day from Angel’s predicted date for the pups, I thought she marked the 26th, actually she had the 28th marked on the calendar. No matter, on the 27th Tori delivered 7 very healthy pups. Of corse just in time to get me out work for the day. First was delivered at 6:45 am and the 7th around 9 am. Smooth as silk, what a great mom she is. So anyone who’s looking for English Springer Spaniel pups better jump in line, 5 males and 2 females this run. On the cool note, 5 of them are the more rare ‘tri-colored’, black/white/ran or liver/white/tan. I’ll post pics up here tomorrow, they are on Angel’s laptop right now.

If Angel’s half calculation/half guess is right we should be seeing pups any time now, Tori our only female English Springer Spaniel should be ready to pop any time now, Angel worked out her due date and it is today. I’m pretty sure she’s real close, the pups have really been riding low the past couple of days and Tori has been acting very clingy. Wonder if she’ll do the same as last time and wait until I’m heading out the door for work in the morning and decide to pop. Served two good purposes then, I took the day off from work and helped supervise the birthing. Last litter was only eight, after only a single ‘tie’, this time around there were at least 4, so a full litter of a dozen or more is likely. Maybe we’ll again get lucky and see a good percentage of females (the score was 6-2 for females to males, fortunately everyone was looking for females) and a few tri-colors this time around again would be cool too.

Only time will tell now… We are really just hoping for another easy litter on Tori. We are debating on whether or not to have her spayed after this litter, sure seemed like a great idea a while back about setting up a full fledged kennel, now it’s looking like way too much work for Angel to handle all day.