Farmington Valley Golden Retrievers

Riley has successfully completed her trial by fire and is now a beaming mom of six puppies. The day yesterday had all the drama of a Lifetime Movie Special: Barbara exhausted from standing vigil the prior night with Riley. Myself just coming off hospital call and finding Riley in labor.

Our good friend Kathy, labor and missionary nurse extraordinaire getting to see her childhood dream of a litter being born.

The first three puppies being born breech with the first being a really difficult fit.

Theresa, our good neighbor and dog midwife, throwing out her back from bending over all day in the whelping box.

A hurried ride with Riley to our most excellent Vet, Dr. Steve Feldman, when her labor stalled after three puppies. A shot of pitocin, then a delivery of a puppy by me in the back of the moving suburban on the way home. Our son Brian watching the big girls upstairs who could smell the scent of new life on all of us.

And Brian retreating upstairs after finding Kathy’s instructions to Barb and Theresa about getting a puppy to latch onto a nipple a little too much for his masculine side.

The uncertainty of how many puppies to expect even with an XRay done that afternoon. The delay of about three hours between puppies that had everyone on edge.

The worry over the last placenta that did not deliver with the final puppy. The final shot of pitocin at midnight to get the placenta out, but me falling asleep on the cot, and the only sign of the placenta having delivered was Riley’s dirty bottom when I awoke to puppy squeaks an hour later. She obviously had a late night snack as a finish to her incredible day’s work.

The final tally: two females, and four males, all thriving this morning. Not the size litter we had hoped for, but considering the adversity we had faced trying to get Riley to successfully have a family over the last two years, we are still very thankful. As you can see, it helps to have a village of friends to whelp a litter, and insure that the best start in life can be given to each one of these special puppies.

And hugs to our Riley who did such a tremendous job for her first try at motherhood!

The only sadness to spoil this great day is for the folks that will be disappointed when I start making the calls or emails tomorrow. I have not looked at the client list in the last several months. Barb has just filed away the applications by dates. Some clients will be ecstatic. One family will be the one who was supposed to take Rocky home last litter, but were sorely disappointed when he had his emergency surgery and we couldn’t guarantee his future health. Another will be a family who grieved over the loss of their precious golden and couldn’t decide on when the right time would be to replace her. So they have been our list through the last two litters and then decided this would be the right time to welcome another golden. I tell everyone this as it is important to realize just how patient some of our clients are. We have a lot fewer puppies to offer than we had hoped. So I have to start at the top of the list and see if clients are still interested, and if we have the boy/girl choice to offer them. I expect this process will take several days. For those who we cannot offer a puppy from Riley’s litter, and who choose to wait, Barb and I will make a special effort to see their wishes fulfilled with our breeding partner, Donna’s next litter.

Riley’s temperature has been dropping, and so Barb and I are alternating nights in the basement with Riley. She will have several hours of restlessness, punctuated by periods of calm, and then will be back to her happy self. There have been no contractions. And she certainly has not lost her appetite for food! This is also my weekend on call for my practice, so I have to intermingle puppy watch with 24 hour in house calls Friday and today. My son Brian has returned from NY, and our good neighbor Theresa is available as always to help Barb out if the labor starts with me at the hospital today. That is our plan.

Rocky came down with me to set up the cot where one of us will be stationed until the puppies arrive, and then to continue until they are large enough that we can be sure there will be no accidents with Riley being a new mother.

This is where I will find myself at night, for about three weeks, but it is all good. We must safeguard and protect the new life we are soon hoping for, that we have so long tried to foster. Barb will get to sleep in our bed upstairs, as she must be rested for puppy and big dog duty during the days. As you can see, this breeding work has to be a labor of love for all involved as it takes over your life for the eight weeks that the puppies are here.

And here is our star of the moment, Riley before our last night’s sleep adventure.

I will send the next post when we have news..

We are down to about 10 days of waiting now for Riley’s labor. Preparations here are on schedule.

For those patient clients of ours, here is the summary of events: After Riley gives birth, we will email the families that are on the list in order of their applications. This will be done as soon as time allows after the births; hopefully, within a few days. We have to wait and see how many boys and girls we are blessed with, along with the health of everyone. If you are offered a puppy, there will be a nonrefundable 100$ deposit that is due immediately. The price of a puppy is 1300.$ plus 6% CT Sales Tax. The balance of the fee is due when you pick up the dog to take home.

Everyone on the final list will be allowed to visit at the three week mark and begin to choose their first three choices by the color of the collar. At seven weeks, temperament testing will be done by one of our breeding friends, and then the assignments will be made. Most families get their top choices unless we are concerned over an overly energetic puppy for instance with an inexperienced golden owner. The litter is usually very uniform in color and size and disposition, as that is what we are selectively breeding for. If we have clients that are left without a puppy, Barb and I will make every attempt to find them a great dog with an upcoming litter from one of our breeding friends. Riley is scheduled for an XRay this Tuesday to get an idea of about how many she is carrying. By Connecticut State law, no puppy can go to their new home until 8 weeks old.

This weekend we started to get Riley ready. First up was a bath. As you can see from the first photo, she wasn’t too thrilled when I called her downstairs and she saw the bathing materials.

She was a good sport however, and managed to climb into the tub without any assistance.

After a little toweling off, it was time for some quiet time in the whelping box. This is her first litter so she wasn’t too interested in  sitting on the linoleum squares with nothing to do.

Then it was upstairs to join the rest of the crew while I sat at the kitchen island and did some paperwork. Of course, I had a few girls at my feet…

And Rocky is never too far away from my side..

Riley was stretched out with the others in the middle of the floor while her coat dried.

You can easily see how much she has filled out when lying near Solo

And her side profile is pretty impressive as well.

Wishing everyone a great upcoming week.

Although the calendar says Spring, on the fields of Farmington in an early hour, the cold still seeps through openings in my clothing, and the grey overcast skies mirror this week’s reflections on events in my life.

A month ago or so, one of my OB/GYN friends on call in the Delivery Room suffered a stroke. He was fine at 11 PM when he spoke to his wife, and at 1 AM when he didn’t respond to the call for a delivery, he wasn’t. A catastrophic clot in his brain has left his dominant side frozen and he remains in a rehab hospital trying to recover the pieces of his life that are still left.    It seems to me that a fit analogy of this random hand of fate is much like the game of musical chairs. There one is suddenly bereft of a seat at the table, and the worst part is that we never can know when the music will stop. In fact, we can’t even hear the music playing most of the time. Add this event to the headline losses of a young life on a way to a mission trip, erased by a drunk driver, and the artistic talent of a Hollywood star snuffed out by an apparently minor fall on a bunny slope from a head injury. It makes one ponder just how fragile our lifeline to this world really is.

So what does one look to for a guiding star in this crazy unpredictable patch of land? The castles that we spend our lives constructing to protect us from the fates are really built on sand.  So we need to carry what is important in our minds and in our hearts. And what is important more than ever is family and those close to you, including your dogs.

Then this morning, the simplest observation gave me back my focus. As I was trying to clean another garden bed of poop, the frozen ground resisted my efforts to give it up even with the use of a metal spade. Next to where I was trying to dig, were the tender shoots of a daffodil. Now how does a plant with shoots that are easily damaged by my foot, manage to push its way through the permafrost that I couldn’t chisel through? This is the miracle of life and the lesson of the universal struggle that all living things must face on a daily basis. Another “Damn” is what I say to that! Followed by an “Amen”.

The rest of this Sunday was spent in much more pleasant pursuits. We bottled a German white wine today and then were able to start the process of converting that part of the basement back into the whelping area. Having Rocky, the puppy, here continues to make life zany and zestful. Here he is playing inside a crate with his older sister Lucy..

Riley continues to get wider along her backside. She rests a little more often than her siblings now, but still enjoys a walk to the fields. Here are some shots of the crew resting after our walk today.

And our mom to be..

Riley’s due date is just two weeks away now, and our thoughts are starting to anticipate those adventures soon to come.

It was a melancholy week for me here in dogville. Emma and Lucy were both spayed on Friday. Both did well with their surgeries, and kudos to Dr. Feldman for once again keeping our animals healthy. But these two events on the same day, heralded major changes in our future breeding activities. For seven year old Emma, it was a well deserved ending to her birthing of three healthy litters. For Lucy it was the end of a potential storied career that never could be. Despite her looks, parentage, and our hard work, the appearance of her eye problem shattered our plans.

My cousin Ron, sent some perceptive comments. After all, he and his Barbara were there, way back at our beginning when we really did not know much about the science of breeding. And they have had three of our dogs over the years. He wrote:

>Pet Alert- Poisonous Mulch – deadly to dogs and cats
>
>Please tell every dog or cat owner you know. Even if you don’t have >a pet, please pass this to those who do.
>
>Over the weekend the doting owner of two young lab mixes purchased Cocoa Mulch from Target to use in their garden. They loved the way it smelled and it was advertised to keep cats away from their garden. Their dog Calypso decided that the mulch smelled good enough to eat and devoured a large helping. She vomited a few times which was typical when she eats something new but wasn’t acting lethargic </SPAN< SPAN>in any way. The next day, Mom woke up and took Calypso out for her >morning walk. Half way through the walk, she had a seizure and died instantly.
> >
>Although the mulch had NO warnings printed on the label, upon further investigation on the company’s website, this product is HIGHLY toxic to dogs and cats.
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> >Cocoa Mulch is manufactured by Hershey’s, and they claim that ‘It is true that studies have shown that 50% of the dogs that eat Cocoa Mulch can suffer physical harm to a variety of degrees (depending on each individual dog). However, 98% of all dogs won’t eat it.’
>
> >This Snopes site gives the following >information:http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/cocoamulch.asp
> >
>Cocoa Mulch, which is sold by Home Depot, Foreman’s Garden Supply and other Garden supply stores, contains a lethal ingredient called ‘Theobromine’. It is lethal to dogs and cats. It smells like chocolate and it really attracts dogs. They will ingest this stuff and die. Several deaths already occurred in the last 2-3 weeks. Theobromine is in all chocolate, especially dark or baker’s chocolate which is toxic to dogs. Cocoa bean shells contain potentially toxic quantities of th eobromine, a xanthine compound similar in effects to caffeine and theophylline. A dog that ingested a lethal quantity of garden mulch made from cacao bean shells developed severe convulsions and died 17 hours later. Analysis of the stomach contents and the ingested cacao bean shells revealed the presence of lethal amounts of theobromine.
> >
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>PLEASE GIVE THIS THE WIDEST DISTRIBUTION!!!

Every year here we have at least one dog eat our wood chip mulch, and get sick, and end up with a vet visit for a stomach ache. They don’t have very discriminating tastes for sure! Wishing a good week to all.