the breakfast bar is full

It's getting a bit crowded when all 10 try to nurse at once. As a result, our littlest girl, blue, is currently being supplemented with goats milk. She started lagging behind her sibs weight wise a couple days ago and suddenly she was over 10 ounces behind! Now that we are supplementing she is beginning to catch up. Yay CCI and the generous person who donates goats milk for the program participants!!

3 more photos

Here is a picture of our little black girl, turquoise, demonstrating that she truly is 3/4 lab.

At one week of age, most of the puppies have doubled their birth weight. They have gotten so big only half really fit at the "breakfast bar" at a time.

another of our 4 girls.

It is hard for me to believe that over a week has gone by. The puppies are endlessly fun to watch and enjoy. Our only real problem has been with Della. Christmas eve day she went out to go "hurry" and when she came in her face was starting to swell and she was coming up in hives all over her body. We slammed a benadryl into her and phoned Dr. Ruth. Then we went out and policed the yard to see what she could have gotten into. The only thing we could find was an orange that had fallen in from our neighbours yard. Della continued to swell and break out, so when Dr. Ruth called she had us give her another benadryl. Finally the swelling went down and the hives resolved. We thought we had it under control and planned on doing our Santa duties and going to bed at a reasonable hour (knowing that our kids would have us up at the crack of dawn). Well, around 11PM, Della went out again and again came in covered with hives!! We medicated her again, but by the time everything settled down, we didn't go to bed until after 1AM. sigh, so much for being well-rested on Christmas. She broke out one more time Christmas morning, but now it looks as if she is all done. Dr. Ruth says that pregnant and nursing bitches just have more sensitive systems and are more sensitive to allergens than normally. It certainly made this a Christmas to remember!! :0)

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas to all from Della and the "C"s!!!

Santa came a little early and left us lots of presents!

the 4 girls are blue, purple, turquoise and dark green

don't forget to wake us for Christmas!!! :0)

next day

Day 3 watch us grow!!



everyone is doing great and growing well. We are definitely starting to see little personalities starting to form. Purple is already practicing her growling and barking and neon green is so mellow he doesn't even wiggle when we weigh him, just goes to sleep in the basket!!

Birthday - Tuesday December 19th (2 days early)

Finally, Puppies!!

baby number 1, a little boy

all dried off

number 2, a little girl

and then there were 3

warm and dry in the warming box during Della's next birthing

tired mom

naptime

am I done yet?

three of the four black puppies

the pile grows...

and then there were 10

Here is exhausted mom with all ten of her beautiful puppies. 6 boys (3 yellow and 3 black) and 4 girls (3 yellow and 1 black). All born between 10AM and 5PM. (Yay Della, a daytime litter!!!) All are doing very well. Cindy at CCI says that they will be a "C" litter. Now we get the fun of thinking up some names and watching these guys grow.

The Della Cave

After extracting Della numerous times from under Duncan's bed, she did us one better and climbed under my daughter's bunk beds. No way to lift that up. Della just wouldn't come out no matter how much we called. Luckily Ashley can fit under her bed. So Dave and I crouched in front calling Della and Ashley crawled underneath and got behind Della and pushed. After about 10 minutes we finally got her out. We then admonished everyone to keep their doors closed and went down and built the "Della Cave". Della loved it and used it all the way through early labor. I guess she just felt safer in a "den".


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And the number of the day is...

Just back from CCI in Santa Rosa. Dr. Ruth was right, Della is full of puppies. At least 10 to be exact. Dr. Ruth also said that there is always the possibility of an extra, "hidden" puppy so I made sure to bring home some goats milk just in case (it's over an hour's drive for us to CCI, I'ld rather have what I need already here). The x-ray was very cool, puppy bodies pointing every which way, and much easier to understand than the ultrasound. Now it's just a matter of time, and Dr. Ruth thinks that the "time" might come sooner than later.... Just a case of "wait and see".

Are we there yet?

Here are some pictures of Miss Della with 10 days to go until her due date. She is definitely getting large and feeling very tired. The look on her face most of the time seems to say "I want to be DONE!!"




This Friday we're going up to CCI in Santa Rosa for Della's x-ray to see how many puppies is "full of puppies"!! I can't wait!! ;o)

Too big for her britches

We've run into a bit of a snag with Della's pregnancy. One of her favorite things to do is accompany me while I read bedtime stories to my 5 year old. When she comes up, she likes to climb under his bed until I am done (I guess "under" was one of her favorite commands... :0) . Anyway, last night we reached a new milestone in her pregnancy. She got under okay, but got stuck trying to crawl back out!! Luckily my son's bed is light and easy to tip up, but boy did she look silly!! ;0) I'm going to try and discourage her from going under in the first place, but until she can't go either direction I guess tipping the bed will be part of our new bedtime routine.

14 days and counting.....

The beginnings of a puppy pen

Well, here it is, the beginnings of Della's puppy pen. Now if I can just get Dave to attach the pieces together!! I'm especially proud of the liner I found for under the pen. It's this cool new product called fiberfloor. It is more flexible than linoleum, padded underneath with a nonslip backing, and waterproof. Another coolness is that the puppy paw prints glow in the dark. I got it as a remnant from my local interior design and flooring store. I love the fact that when it gets dirty (as we all know it will) I can just take it out back and hose it off.

Whelping pool

Today we introduced Della to her whelping pool. This is your basic round kiddie pool with some blankets inside for comfort. When she actually whelps we'll replace the blankets with newpaper for easier clean-up. She really didn't know what to make of it at first. Because it wasn't full of water, the bottom moved up and down when she put her front feet in and she stood for the longest time with her front feet in and one back leg raised trying to decide if this was a good idea or not. We coaxed her in with some treats and then got her to lie down and gave her a good belly rub. Now she thinks the pool is a fine place!!

Also finally got Dave to go shopping for the lumber for the puppy pen. Now if I can only get him to build it!! :0) My teenage daughter says if he won't she will......

Walkies

Dave and I took Della and Siri for a nice walk yesterday. We even got to stop and visit with Marianne, our "whelping buddy". She made a nice fuss over both dogs and Della was very well-behaved for the visit, but Siri was a total brat, squeaking and whining when she felt Della was getting more attention than her. A good demonstration of the difference between a CCI raised dog and a regular pet dog. (yes, it is my fault she only went to 2 sets of obedience classes and I let her get away with too much, so sue me...) :0)

We only walked about a half mile, but when we got home Della just flopped down on the rug and lay there. I guess she is getting big enough to really feel the extra weight of the pregnancy. That means I will be switching to more frequent, shorter walks from now on.

Other than being more tired than usual and her expanding middle, the biggest change with pregnancy for Della has been her behavior. She has always been people-oriented, but now she almost never leaves my side and constantly wants to be pet. Great when I'm watching tv, a little difficult when I'm doing chores!

Some days I think that Della is a lab/camel cross instead of lab/golden. This dog LOVES to drink. Even before she got pregnant she drank way more than Siri, our lab/poodle cross (labradoodle, don't ya know). She doesn't "hurry" more than Siri, so I don't know where she is putting all that water! :0)

Poor Della, one of her favorite things used to be to crawl under my son's bed during bedtime stories. Now she can't comfortably make it. She also is slowing down when it comes time to play fetch. We have gotten into the habit of playing with her and Siri seperately. Otherwise Siri always gets to the toy first.

The Journey Begins

This last summer my family and I brought home a breeding female lgx (lab/golden cross) from CCI (Canine Companions for Independence) national headquarters in Santa Rosa, CA. We had for years contemplated raising a puppy for CCI or Guide Dogs for the Blind, but were loathe to do so as we felt it would be too heartbreaking for the children (and us) to raise a dog for 18 months then have to give it up. Then this spring we learned about the CCI breeder program. In this program we house a breeding female, whelp her puppies for the program, and get to keep the dog we have fallen in love with for the rest of her life! This seemed like much more fun and still a great way to give to a program we really believe in. Also, having puppies is fun and this is a very guilt-free way to do so. We don't have to worry about producing unwanted dogs or trying to find good homes for the puppies. These pups are all wanted and needed.

So, we brought home Della II in July and then got to wait for her to go into heat. This she did on October 15th. So up to Santa Rosa we went for her 3 week stay in the "spa". She was bred 3 times to the most gorgeous black lab you could ever hope to see named Baumann. Then we brought her home and waited..

Around 3 weeks later, still not showing, Della decided it was time for morning sickness! So it was "please eat Della, we'll add anything to your food!" rice, cottage cheese, canned food, chopped chicken, cooked ground beef, broth.... And at the same time having to monitor our other 2 dogs so they didn't get the food when she would wander off in the middle of dinner!!

As per CCI protocol, we brought her back to Santa Rosa a month before her due date for an ultrasound. On Nov. 21st, the vet pronounced her "full of puppies". She wouldn't say how many were in there, but everywhere she placed the ultrasound probe we saw puppies!!

Now, Della is the queen bee of our house. Spoiled and pampered and loved. Thankfully, her morning sickness is gone and she reliably finishes her meals before the other 2 can get to it. And boy is her waistline expanding fast!! We're watching her intake so she doesn't gain weight too fast (especially since Dr Ruth praised us for keeping her weight in check so far) and keeping her exercise level up to keep her fit (our other dogs help with that chore). Now all that is left is the waiting (oh, and getting my hubby to help build a puppy pen!!)