Dallas' Puppies Turn 1 Week Old!

Hi everyone,

Dallas' puppies turned 1 week old on Friday and to celebrate, we had a photo shoot yesterday! I did my best, but Dallas wasn't very happy with me for snagging her babies one by one, and boy was it ever hard to keep puppies still for their pictures! Despite the difficulties, I think I got some good shots...

Dallas and Bruce's firstborn: A little girl with a pretty white blaze.

 

Second to be born: A little boy with white going down one side of his face like grandma Rogue!

 

Third to be born: A petite little girl - isn't she pretty?

 

Fourth to be born: A little girl with lots of white who seems to be Dallas' favorite.

 

Fifth to be born: A little girl with a big noggin' and a white blaze just like her great-grandma DeeDee!

 

Last but not least: A handsome little boy - don't you love the pink on his nose?

 

The puppies are growing in leaps and bounds and currently weigh between 1¼ lbs. and 1½ lbs. This is double their birth weight, which means they are right on track. Dallas continues to be a very good mama and while at first she wouldn't leave the crate, she finally figured out that the puppies do just fine if she goes away for short periods of time.

 

 

Mama Dallas (pre-pregnancy) with her sister, Eve.

Handsome daddy, Bruce.

 

I return to work this week, so it promises to be a busy one, but I will continue to do my best to take pictures to share with all of you from time to time. Stay tuned!

Six new puppies come to Westside Beagles!

Mama Dallas with her 6 newborn puppies.

Hello everyone!

It has been a long time since I've had something to post about, but finally some good news! Yesterday evening, Dallas delivered 6 healthy tri-color puppies - 2 boys and 4 girls. Bruce (Fan Woods The Boss) is the father. I hadn't been expecting Dallas to have puppies until the middle of next week, as Tuesday would have been Day 63 from her first breeding, but mother nature had other plans! And, even though puppies came early, at Day 59 it was safe for them to be born, as puppy lungs fully mature by Day 58.

So to give you a little bit of the story, Dallas went to the vet this past Tuesday for pregnancy x-rays to determine how many puppies to expect. The vet counted 6 spines, but only 5 skulls, which left some room for doubt as to how many babies we were expecting. As you can tell from the pictures, it isn't the easiest to see where one puppy starts and the next one begins!

I had started monitoring Dallas' temperature on Wednesday, as is a common practice to do one week in advance of anticipated whelping. Doing this gives me a good idea of what the mother-to-be's normal temperature is and a sudden drop of temperature below 99 degrees Fahrenheit is a strong indicator that labor will begin within the next 12-24 hours. I was more than a little surprised, then, when on Thursday night, Dallas' temperature dropped to 98.3. Not sure I believed this, I checked on a second thermometer, and sure enough, that one read 98.5! Then, the next morning, Dallas woke me up digging in her blankets and refused her breakfast. All the signs said that puppies were coming soon and I was more than a little freaked out, since I was scheduled to work all day Friday and also the weekend. So much for my requesting time off the following week!

Knowing it was likely to still be several hours until Dallas started delivery, I went into work for a few hours and my wonderful coworkers got me out early. Another coworker picked up my Saturday shift so I wouldn't have to worry about labor running long or me having to leave the puppies when they had just been born. I rushed home to find Dallas anxious, but happy to see me. A few hours later, just before 6 pm, labor began and by 6:30 pm, the first puppy, a little girl, came into the world. From there on out, Dallas had approximately one puppy per hour, finally giving birth to her final puppy, a boy, just around midnight. Luckily, she delivered everyone with minimal difficulty - the last boy was the only puppy she needed assistance from me in delivering. Why do I say "luckily"? Well, delivery is always a stressful time for a breeder, as it is not uncommon for beagles to have dystocias and require emergency C-sections due to a puppy being too big to pass through the birth canal - especially when breeding for blocky heads. Usually, if there is going to be a problem, it is with the very first puppy but we've also had the last puppy be the one who got stuck!

Friday night - 3 puppies down, 3 more to go!

Since giving birth, Dallas has been an amazing mom. She is very protective and for right now, I'm the only one she wants anywhere near her babies. I've been putting food and water directly in front of her from time to time because she doesn't want to leave the puppies for an instant. As time goes on, Dallas should relax a little, but I'm pleased to see her taking such good care of her babies.

Girls are in pink, boys in green.

In the days to come, for those of you who have already been in contact with me about getting a puppy from this litter, please let me know if you are still interested in one of the babies. Now that puppies are born, I'll be taking deposits. Since I don't allow visitors until the puppies are at least 4 weeks old, I'll be posting occasionally so that you can keep up with the puppies in pictures as they grow. Welcome to the Westside Beagles family!

Happy Birthday! Puppies are 1 week old.

Last Thursday, in the wee hours of the morning, Eve gave birth to six puppies - two girls and four boys. Two of these males were tan and white, while the remaining puppies were all tri-color. Eve's first delivery was not easy, as the puppies were quite large, and we were close to calling the vet about performing a c-section. However, we managed to avoid this and were excited to welcome all of the new little lives into the world. Sadly, within the first two days after birth, two of the male puppies passed away. These two puppies had the most difficult deliveries, so we speculated that the deliveries may have contributed to their deaths, but unfortunately we will never know why these puppies didn't make it.

Given our concern over the deaths of the two male puppies, we have been carefully monitoring the remaining puppies for any signs of problems. Luckily, everyone looks to be healthy and thriving. They are nice and chubby, gaining 1-2 ounces daily and everyone already weighs over a pound! So, without further ado, let me please present our beautiful new additions...

Tan & white male (2nd born)

Tri-color female (last to be born)

Tri-color female (4th born)

Tri-color male (3rd born)

X-rays tell the tale... Six puppies expected!

There's no doubt about it, Eve is expecting! If her huge belly didn't give things away, the X-ray above showing six little skeletons definitely tells us puppies are coming. We've moved Eve indoors with us so we can keep a close eye on her and we are currently busy getting everything ready for whelping. 

So when will puppies arrive? The answer is, soon! Today was Day 57 from Eve's first breeding and typical gestation period for dogs is 63 days.  We've rarely had one of our beagles make it to Day 63, but we usually like to see our moms-to-be make it to at least Day 58, as puppies are more likely to have health issues from being born premature prior to this. Since puppies could be here as early as this weekend, keep a close watch for birthing news.

The belly says it all! Puppies are on the way!

Check out that

Well, there's not a doubt in our minds that Eve is going to have puppies. Last week she began waddling and she already looks bigger now than she does in the above picture, which was taken a few days ago. Eve goes to the vet on Tuesday so we can get x-rays to determine how many puppies to expect. With the way she is showing, we are anticipating a fairly large litter of at least 6-8. This is only a guess, of course, so we'll find out how accurate this guess is once the x-rays are done. Her official due date will be August 13th, which will be Day 63 from her first breeding, but with a large litter, she is likely to go sooner than that. Stay tuned for more information in the upcoming week!

Practicing her yoga poses?

Sire is FC Shawn's Choptalk Mr. Sam

Hopeful...

AKC Westside Rogue's Let's Call it Even (Eve)

Well, we were once again disappointed this spring.  Initially, we were very excited that Rose tested positive on a pregnancy test, this being our final attempt to get puppies from her.  However, when we took Rose in for x-rays, there was no evidence of puppies. We x-rayed again one week later, but still no puppies. This means that Rose resorbed her pregnancy.  This is different from aborting.  It means that something happened to make her body absorb the fetuses she was carrying.

Since this is the second year in a row that we found out we were not having puppies, we quickly started making arrangements to breed Rose's half-sister, Eve, who was due to come into heat.  When she finally did come in, I drove over 6 hours to central Virginia to drop her off at Mike Mooney's place, where he had a field champion stud named Mr. Sam that my husband had been wanting to breed a dog to for quite some time.  All in all, it was a 13 hour round trip to and from that I made twice - once to drop Eve off and once to pick her up a week later!  Now we are cautiously holding our breath and crossing our fingers that we may finally have puppies on the way again.  We should know more within the next week, so for those who have been waiting for some kind of news from us for a while, stay posted.  I hope to announce some good news very soon!

Back to the drawing board... Rose not pregnant

Such disappointing news!

I've had several people write to inquire as to the availability of puppies and we should have been expecting puppies any day now.  However, we found out several weeks ago that Rose is not expecting.  Since this IS supposed to be the place to go for Westside Beagles pregnancy news and litter updates, I wanted to make sure that this blog got updated, albeit a little belatedly.  While I directly contacted those folks who were on the waiting list to give them the news that Rose was not pregnant after two consecutive pregnancy tests came back negative, I overlooked posting the news here on the blog.

We do not yet have definite plans on when we will breed our next litter.  Tentatively, at this point, we will most likely breed again in November or December in hopes of having an early Spring litter.  Keep checking back and thanks for your continued interest in Westside Beagles.