It’s always exciting to share pregnancy news and what’s coming up here at Pinewood Cavapoos!
And I’m happy to share that Lucy and Dickens are expecting “cow” puppies at the end of this month. We did an ultrasound on her a while back (it was still early) and I thought she was pregnant but wanted to wait a while to double-check to confirm it. Yesterday’s ultrasound made things very obvious (I wish I could’ve gotten a picture for everyone to see but all of our hands were busy). She is carrying four, maybe five puppies.
And while I’m sharing news, I’ll share the reality of what happens when raising dogs.
- I wish every breeding we did “took” and produced a litter
- I wish every girl had an uneventful pregnancy and smooth delivery
- I wish every girl had a nice sized litter of six or so puppies.
- I wish every litter had a nice amount of boys vs girls (or maybe a few more girls since that’s what most people want).
- I wish every litter had a variety of colors to make everyone happy
- I wish every litter of puppies came out big and fat and grew like gangbusters
Most people assume you have a girl dog and a boy dog, the girl comes in season, the boy happily breeds the girl, voila’ approximately two months later a big, beautiful litter arrives which thrive and grow and make a lot of people happy!
But here’s the reality…
- Not every girl we try to breed gets pregnant for whatever reason.
- Not every boy gets his job done and sometimes we have to help nature along with A.I. (artificial insemination) which from my experience doesn’t produce as many puppies as a natural breeding.
- I only have so many combinations that produce red/apricot puppies (the most sought-after color)
- Sometimes a mom has complications (like Rosie and her C-section)
- Sometimes the litter is smaller than anticipated (Maybe a mom only has one or two pups when the average is closer to five. Or like Rosie’s case where there were six puppies but we only ended up with three live ones).
- Sometimes puppies come out fat and sassy and keep gaining weight with no issues or we may have some small ones, or average sized that for whatever reason lose weight after birth and take a while to “catch up” or we have to supplement to give them that extra help. (Remember Flower’s last litter? Which reminds me, I have some cute updates on Peanut to share..but that’s another post!)
This is not meant to be a discouraging post, just a “real” one so everyone understands the ups and downs of the dog “business” and why sometimes the wait is long or why it’s so hard to give an estimate on the”how long will I have to wait for a puppy” question (and I haven’t even brought the human element into that equation here)
For instance, we had one other girl that was bred and due around the same time as Rosie. But for whatever reason, she did not get pregnant. And another after her that was due this week, any day, but alas, she does not look like she “took” either. (I’m keeping a close eye on her just in case she’s got one tucked up there somewhere!) So there were two hopeful pregnancies that didn’t come to fruition.
We are grateful for Rosie’s babies, thankful to be expecting Lucy’s cow puppies coming later this month, and happily, we have two girls that will be ready to ultrasound next week, and one more that following week! So send good thoughts that there will be more puppies developing in those little bellies!
