And life goes on…..

Big day for Dotjes puppies… they suddenly became little dogs!!!!!!!

The eyes are beginning to open
The ears are opening too.
So today while holding a pup, that the till then had been blind and deaf, I felt it have the fright of its life after suddenly experiencing something totally new to its life. A huge step.
And suddenly they are stumbling around the whelping box wondering what on earth happened over night!
They have started doing their cute puppy bark surprising themselves how totally cool they are!
Mama Dotje is staying out of the whelping box for longer times. She walks in just to get them moving and exercising chasing after her, and then she leaves as if these yelling little pups aren’t hers. All part of the big plan to build up her pups to healthy strong Lagotti. And after everyone decided it must have been a dream that mama was there and has settled down in walks mama Dot and flops down around them to give them their milk reward.

I tried to take a photo that shows how eager they are at dinner time but non really give their true enthusiasm and excitement. They stand eager and stiff, all tails ridged in excitement and enjoyment of such a wonderful meal. Way to cute not to at least try to give you an impression of these now little dogs. Vaglie and Dotje eat a tremendous amount of food which will get more and more as the pups grow. But sometimes they get just a bit too much. Being a handy girl thinking ahead for harder times Vaglie kept this baby chick in her mouth too afraid her pups might steal it from her..

“I’m nof wetting go of vis for no foddy” As if Vaglie hasn’t enough to do she even takes time out to clean Rowi’s eyes and ears.
Kiwi and Zanna watching the birds in the front garden.

Unfortunately there cant always be good news….

Yesterday “sneewpop”, the smallest of all the pups, started to go down hill. She had not put on much weight since her birth and now her body said it was time to go. I spent all day trying to get her strength up but it was to no avail. Late at night we had to say goodbye to her.

For most of the pups the early delivery was not a problem. But Sneewpopjes body wasn’t quite ready and could not catch up.

Rest well little girl xxx

“Mariette” get a life!
Als je nooit niets positiefs te zeggen hebt dan wens ik jou een fijn gefrustreerd leven toe! Wij gaan door het leven leuker te maken!!!
Om je te beschermen van een eventuele ernstige maagzweer zou ik jou willen adviseren om mijn home-page gewoon te negeren.
Sorry lieve Lagotto mensen maar zo als jullie weten zijn er wat gefrustreerde types die graag wat negatiefs in dagboeken willen zetten. Ik plaats deze opmerkingen niet. Ze denken het allemaal beter te weten maar iets positiefs delen met anderen zit er niet in. Zielige kinderachtige types die geen mail adressen geven wat een volwassen maner van communiceren onmogelijk maakt.
Hierbij heb ik mijn zegje gedaan en voel me erg gelukkig met mijn tijdelijke 22 honden LOL.

Dotje cleaning one of the girls
You can almost watch them grow.. Red has his paw turned up and you can see that the pink pads from 8 days ago are nearly brown now.
Close-up of that cute little paw
Looks like Vaglie has more than 9 pups but turly there arent.

Yellow.
Rowi and Kiwi pass the time togeather waiting till all pups have feed and we can go for a walk. They are such good girls and show so much patiance. Im very proud of them!

Indroducing Vaglies litter going clock wise strating with the white-brown puppy top right.Arrow = with some imagination her back spot looks like a big fat arrow

Moon = white-orange female.

George = white-orange male. Why George? Well he just looks like a George. Don’t all people that are called George have ginger hair? LOL

Yellow = no points for guessing why this name. White-orange boy with yellow cord around his neck.

Tre = w-b female with Italian name meaning 3. (3 markings on her butt :-) )

Stip = w-b female having an ever so small white spot on her head. In Dutch a small “stip”

Speck = w-b female. What you cant see in this photo is that she has very small brown speck on her left side.

Sneewpop = w-b female with a snowman marking on her back. Dutch name.

Mr Brown = w-b male. He is the only male having any brown color. On his other side he has 3 large brown markings.

A gathering of on lookers at Vaglie’s litter

I'd call this a mound of puppies.

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. All ohhhhhhhhhh moments of "cuteness" :-)
In the middel is Speck, you can see her speck here.

The day started off so normal.... Vaglie was'nt due for another 2 days.

1600 and Vaglie looked at me as if to say "I think it's time mum" pufff puff puff
And she was'nt kidding. As easy as could be an hour later the first puppy was born.
Vaglie was very fortunate as she had an excellent midwife to help her. Kiwi was incredible! She helped with each and every puppy. With some pups she actually did most of the work as Vaglie was too large to comfortably get to the pups when it all started. She also helped Vaglie clean herself up. They were truly an amazing duo! Dot took the time off from her puppys to come and visit and admire the new borns.
And after 6 hours Vaglie is the proud mother of 9 pups!!!
6 females. 5 white-brown, 1 white-orange
3 males. 1 white brown, 2 white-orange

Well this was an unexpected and happy day for us :-)

Unfortunatly with my friend Siets (a breeder of Estrela's and Leonbergers) it was sad news as one of her old Estrelas, Zotte, sadly died. He was such a great Estrela, a large male that was so naughty and gentel. He loved pups and was one of the few aloud by the mothers to visit the litters. Zotte was Kiwis "great grand uncle" He will be greatly missed.

I have nicknamed the pups again so I know who is who. Esp. handy when I need to identify them for weighing.

From top to bottom, left to right.

Blix = shortend from the Dutch word for lightning. This because she has a lightning stripe on her head

Espresso = because her brown colour is so very dark

Red = he is the white male with the red collar

Koppie = Dutch for small head. She is the only one with all white body and brown head

The Boss = largest of the 2 white boys

Tree = on the left side of her rump you can see a brown mark that looks somewhat like somebody draw a tree on her.

Row = she has a row of brown markings running down the top of her body.

Rowi is getting braver and decided a quick visit was appropriate.
Vaglie doing her walrus impersonation. I wonder whats in there.....

The Boss not looking so bossy
Koppie being "mama's girl".
Still looking proud and having every right too.
Dotje lays with her pups allllll day. But when I open the front door to go for a short walk with the rest of the pack she is like lightning and pushes though all the dogs and jumps in the car first ready to go! On our short walk she walks with such a proud stride. I’m sure she is thinking of her beautiful pups. She chases with Rowi at such speed one wouldn’t guess she just gave birth to 7 pups. But when we are nearly back to the car suddenly her mother instincts kick in again and she is the first one back to the car and impatiently waits for us all to get back too. Once home she is first inside and back to her motherly duties.

Camouflage dogs Floyd and Manon.

It was a long night since I thought Dotje still was going to deliver a pup. Her behaviour was the same as during the delivery of her 7 puppies but no contractions came and by 7 in the morning (after we had both had a “super sleep” for 2 hours) I decided enough was enough and we got into contact with the vet. After a long story and to be safe than sorry Dotje was x-rayed to find out for sure if she still had a puppy hiding some where. Thankfully she didn’t otherwise the most probable solution would have been a C-section. Not something I wanted Dotje to have to have.
Thankfully Dot is just a “heavy breather" found to be in perfect health. We left with releaf plus we had a huge complement how lovely Dotje is with her puppies and how trusting she is of the world around her and her pups.
Everyone (dogs) in the house has met the pups now. Non make a fuss, the pups are simply accepted to be part of the family. And Dot was extremely tolerant of the attention knowing the others mean no harm and just want to check out the youngest members of the Kakapo nest.
Dot is eating like a horse so she has plenty to feed her 7 children which at the moment looks something like a non-stop 24 hour “sucking station”.
I don’t tire of looking and looking at them…..

Close-ups of feeding pups always make me smile.
Proud Dotje!
Quiz. There are 7 puppies in this picture. Can you find them all?

number 1, 2 and 3 puppies

I AM THE RULER!!!!
Where was Vaglie? “eeer, yeah I’ll just squash myself under here so as not to be in any ones way ok…”
Rowi taking in the new family situation.
Mama Dot did a wonderful job. Totaly relaxed she deliverd 7 beautiful puppies. 5 white-brown girls and 2 white boys.
This was it for today. But I staying up a little longer because I expect one more suprise.

nr. 6.... 22.25 white brown female
7... 22.31 white brown female....pfffff one more puppy I think still to come

21.25 white boy 280grams :-)

21.17 another little girl! White brown 220grams

20.44 white brown female 324 grams

First born girl!!!


First born boy!!!
Kiwi is already in love with the puppies! Isnt this the cutes thing you can imagin to see :-)))

1933 white brown female 315grams
1944 white male 322 grams

18.40 Dotjes started contractions!!!

Nothing yet…. Dotje goes in and out of her whelping box. She lays and sleeps a while in her “cave” and then comes and huffs and puffs a bit laying next to me.
Her belly is very tight and I can nearly count the toes on each paw of one of the pups as he/she lays hard against Dots tummy wall.
I gently but firmly massage Dots tummy and she stretches out apparently really enjoying it. Its nice to do too be it a little lumpy.
Normally I don’t mind doing “nothing” all day waiting for the birth. The calmer I am the calmer mum is. But today there have been 2 men painting the outside of my house. They must think I’m a woman of luxury. Talking on the phone all day, cuddling the dogs, sitting doing a bit of surfing on the net, talking via the computer with family in NX, tottering around a bit getting the last things ready for the births. Every now and then “madam” goes and give them coffee and biscuits. Yip defiantly this is the life ;-). What makes it somewhat worse is the fact that they are Polish and can hardly speak a word of English so I cant defend my lazy ways and relieve my guilty feelings hahaha.

Like I said I think today is the day for pups. It’s a waiting game and all the other dogs seem to know it too. Everyone is calm and not begging to go out but instead being extraordinary lazy and sweet.

Dot enjoys the whelping box being covered. Her own safe little den. When she is not in it the others have a lay in it but they don’t go under the blanket. They prefer to lay in the open entrance.

Yes Dot really is in the whelping box

See, told you so. Cute bum eh.

Gee this is really comfy….

Try this way of sleeping (but most of the time she lays with her head deeply hidden in her den).

Good temp. drop this morning so I think Dotje will have her puppies late in the evening today or early tomorrow!!!

Walk in the woods..........

Oh ok I'll say "cheeeeeese" for the photo (Rowi)

Dot and Vaglie had a rough cute but nicer for hot weather..

High round belly of Dot

Low hanging sexy belly of Vaglie. She really is thinking "hurry up and take the photo so I can carry on normaly with the others"