March 11, 2007 - Coming Soon
Meg and Charlie are expecting puppies on March 12, 2007!   I can tell by the look on her face that Meg is VERY ready to be a momma again!!   You can see pictures of full siblings to the coming puppies on my Friends and Family page - they will be labeled Meg x Charlie - as Meg's first litter was also sired by Charlie.  Meg is a great mother, had her puppies last time without any difficulty, and took very good care of them.   She is in the whelping box right now, tearing up her blankets nesting, the baby nursery is all ready to go, her temperature is down to 98 degrees so I think she plans on having the pups right on time!   Watch for BIRTH day pictures!!!


March 12, 2007 - Birth Day
Faith and Begora, but our Meggy girl outdid yerself this day!!  TWELVE, yes 12, little wee wuns birthed on the 12th o' March!!!  6 lil lads & 6 lil lasses!!!   It was a fine day to be sure, and our Meggy girl couldn't o' done a better job fer ye!!   Tis happy I am ter be tellin ya that all have ridges, all be dark red, an all be pudgy lil buggers!!  

Of the 6 little lasses, one has a wee bit of a short ridge, one has a wee bit of a kink in the tail, and one has a wee bit too much white on 'er back feet and tip o tail.
Of the 6 little lads, I'm thinkin' 2 only have one crown in their ridge, and one might have a wee bit o a kink in his tail too.

Blimey, but they be growing fast!!!   On the morrow, tis right that I have their dew claws removed and the vet be mindin'  to their first check up.   To be sure the wee babes will be ready to be goin' home to ye come the middlin of May, iffen ye be ready now!!

Top o the Mornin to ye!!!  Enuf o'  this BLARNEY!!!


March 22, 2007 - 10 Days
The "Dublin" dozen are 10 days old!!!!   They have nearly doubled in size!!!!   Meg is valiantly trying to keep up feeding them all, but she is nursing someone almost constantly!!!   We routinely rotate the biggest 6 out so that the littlest 6 get a chance to REALLY get a good meal.   We use Nutri-Cal, a very high energy paste, every day to help boost their little systems too.  The dew claw removal went very very well.   Did you know that we use veterinary super glue to hold the skin together after they are removed?  Really makes scaring less likely.   They had their first toenail trim!   It takes quite a little time to trim 4 toenails on the 4 feet of 12 puppies - especially when they are so squirmy!!!  I know Momma Meg appreciates the removal of 192 little daggers!!!   I think we are just beginning to see a hint of eyes starting to come open!!  Usually by two weeks they are definitely opening their eyes.   Did you know that their eyes are ALWAYS blue when they first come open?  They will darken every day and by the time they go home to their new families, they will be mostly dark brown.    I don't know why this happens, but it always does - their fur has gotten real fuzzy so it is quite difficult to see the ridge especially the crowns (hair colics) that form the ridge.   They will be fuzzy for about two weeks and then one day they just AREN'T anymore!!    Navels all look good - no 'outeys' I hope.  

We have been working on litter names!!!   We like the St Patty's Day/ Irish theme - plus the green makes it feel like spring!!!   So far the list contains:   Shamrock, Emerald, Lucky, Charm, Limerick, Leprechaun, Cork, Dublin, Murphy, O'Toole, O'Malley, O' Shea, O'Connell and many many more O's!!!!   We think it is much more fun to talk about the puppies by a name rather than by a number or a color, hence the themes.   Understand that this is simply a litter name, you can name your puppy anything you want to later.   It will be a few weeks yet before we actually assign the names to each pup because we kind of like to match the right name to the right pup!!!  Who is gonna be Murphy or Lucky or Charm!!!!?????


March 28, 2007 - 16 Days
Dublin Dozen double dimensions!!!    Can you say 'feed conversion'?   How about 'stand back, I don't know how big they are gonna git'?   WOW, have the wee wuns ever outgrown their name - they doubled in size again this week and have yet to stop eating!!   Poor Meg!!     We are still supplementing the pups with Nutrical daily and will probably help Meg out by supplementing them with milk replacer beginning this next week too.    She is still doing a great job, all the pups look wonderful, but as they get older and they require more and more milk she is REALLY going to have a hard time keeping up.   She eats 4 times a day -  all she wants!!!

They have opened their eyes this week!!!  I don't think they actually SEE very much but that will improve almost daily.   Right now their eyes are kind of blue, but they will darken every day as well.   Irish eyes are Smilin'!!

They are beginning to do their G-I Joe crawl, and some manage to sort of get up on all fours and rock a bit before biffing back into the blankets!!!  They are aware of each other and have begun to play and wrestle around a little bit - when they are not eating of course.   Even heard some really pathetic attempts at growling and barking!!  Usually they sort of look at each other as if to say "Did that come out of you or me!!??"

Unofficially we have chosen names for the Wee Wuns aka "Dublin Dozen" :

Girls are:  Clover, Emerald, Rainbow, Charm, Paddy and Limerick

Boys are:  Murphy, Corky, Leprechan,  Shamrock, Blarney, and Lucky

Haven't decided yet who is who yet.  It requires knowing WHO each little personality is before we can say which one FITS a name like Charm, Limerick, Murphy, Corky, Blarney etc.....!!!!!!

No new faults to mention.  The ridges are still in that 'fuzzey" stage - by next week they should be easier to look at again.     Still think we have 3 girls who are faultless and 3 boys who are faultless.   The 3 girl's faults are 1 with a short ridge, 1 with X white on the front left foot and a kink tip tail, and 1 with X white on both rear feet and a titch of white on the tail tip.   The 3 boy's faults are 2 with a 1 crown ridge and one with a kink tip tail.  

Very very clean nice litter!!  Meg and Charlie outdid themselves!!!


April 5, 2007
Another week of tremendous growth by the Dublin Dozen!!!  They turned into PUPPIES this week!!!!  They are out of the GI Joe crawl and can actually stand up pretty well, maybe even a few hops and jumps now and then!!!!   They are getting MUCH better at barking and growling and have really started to play with each other!!!   They enjoy chewing on each other’s ears and tails and doing a LOT of rolling around wresting with each other!   They are all pretty much the same size – maybe the boys are just a little bigger than the girls already.

As you can see by the pictures of the girls, they have finally gotten over their fuzziness and the ridges are MUCH easier to see again.    Felt a dermoid sinus on one of the little girls yesterday (bummer) so she will be a pet now.  We will have it removed before she goes home and it will not be a problem for her new family.  I can explain more about dermoids to anyone who wants to know – just ask!!   So for right now we have four pet girls – Clover, Rainbow, Charm and Paddy – a dermoid, a short ridge, and 2 with a little too much white on her feet.   The 2 girls with no faults are Emerald and Limerick.

The faultless boys are Leprechan and Shamrock.   The boys with flaws are Murphy, Corky, Blarney and Lucky.   Their flaws are 2 one crown ridges, 1 kink tail, and this week while checking belly buttons, I noticed that one of the little boy’s belly button is sort of an ‘outey’ yet so if it stays that way we will have to note that.  I can still feel the opening in the muscle wall so it may still heal itself properly, but if not it is an easy thing for your vet to fix while he is asleep getting neutered.  Time will tell!!! 

Meg is beginning to have that look on her face that tells us that the pink haze of parenthood has started to dim with the Dublin Dozen!!!  She definitely likes to spend more and more time OUT of the whelping box!!!   Even their weekly toenail trim doesn’t help anymore!!

Next week, they get their first worming (yuk!) and we will probably get them started on their first puppy mush.  We will also start introducing them to the litter box!!  Yes, they will use the litter box and it sure helps keep them clean once they turn into pooping little machines!!!   Sure hope it warms up this week so that they can play outside in the puppy play pen once in awhile.  I think they are conspiring to figure out how to escape from the whelping box cause they are getting bored and want to follow their momma!!!


April 15, 2007
Thank Goodness Spring has finally sprung up here!!!   We had a gorgeous Kerry Green day so all the puppies got to go outside and PLAY for the first time and experience GRASS!!!!  Took them a little bit to realize that stuff poking them in the tummy was NOT going to hurt them!!!  Oh what fun they had then!!   Wore them out!!   Right now they are all very playful and outgoing, very curious about their new world.  Now that they can be outside, we can provide new experiences for them every day so that they can expand their horizons – other dogs besides MOM, horses, cats, bicycles, cars, sunshine, shade, eating out of their puppy ring and drinking WATER out of a bucket, even some BUGS already!!! They like to follow Meg around the yard which was fine until Meg took them on a ‘walkabout’ which led to them experiencing MUD for the first time!!   That in turn
led to their first BATH!!!

They are getting their TEETH!!!  Sharp, little, painful teeth!!   Another toenail trim this week didn’t even help Meg feel better about them!!   Honestly, Meg is pretty sick of them!!!!  She sleeps with them at night only and nurses them again at noon and at 6:00 – standing only!, and that is it – she is outta there!!!  They are eating puppy mush very, very well, all are chubby!, so this coming week we will continue the weaning process so that they are pretty much completely weaned by six weeks.  

Pictures has been an exercise in frustration – ggrrrrrrrr – I think the camera is on its last leg!!  It takes at least 2 people (3 is better) to take their pictures at this age!!  The wild things WON”T sit still and then using a camera that WON”T focus quickly just REALLY makes our lives miserable!!!  Actually had help come TWICE to take pictures trying to get the camera to work!  Gggrrrrr….Bear with me while I go shopping for a new camera!!!

We KNOW who is who now!!!!  

  1:  Paddy- Female pet with a ridge that might be just a little short
  2:  Lucky- Male pet with 1 crown
  3:  Murphy- Male pet with 1 crown and blackest mask of all.
  4:  Limerick- Female with darkest mask on a girl, might have a crown on her head!!!
  5:  Charm- Female perfect, no longer has excessive white on RR, no white tip on tail !!!
  6:  Clover- Female pet, kink tail, lost excessive white on LF
  7:  Blarney- Male pet with kink tail
  8:  Emerald- Female perfect
  9:  Rainbow- Female pet with dermoid
10:  Corky- Male perfect
11:  Leprechan- Male pet with minor belly button hernia which may go away
12:  Shamrock- Male perfect


April 22, 2007
This week the Dublin Dozen really became part of the family!   They are all funny little lovable clowns, curious about EVERYTHING, just SOOO happy to see us!!   Every one of them wonders off for adventure, yet every one wants attention too and will come for snuggles and a moment of lap time.   Some just have a shorter attention span than others and then OFF they go!!!   The Lap Lovers who will stay a little longer (sometimes at least!) seem to be:  Charm, Corky, Lucky, and Clover.  But I can't say that they are consistently that way...   Same with the “adventure” pups, Leprechan, Emerald and Limerick, all of them are curious about the WORMS who crawl on the sidewalks (we’ve had a LOT of rain lately!), or the bugs, and they even met their first garter snake the other day!!!   We are using GREAT “toys” from the house to keep them busy when we are watching them.  Lids from whipped cream or butter are GREAT Frisbees.  Plastic soda or water bottles filled with puppy kibble will roll, make noises, and distribute goodies down the driveaway!   Old socks, gloves and nylons make great pull and fight toys.   For unsupervised play, I still like them to ONLY have rope toys, Kongs, and rawhide bones.

Momma Meg is all done nursing them now and she is very GOOD with that!!! We slowly weaned them all last week, being away from Meg more every day.  Starting today Meg will not even sleep with them anymore.   Their new bedroom is a giant crate, so that they start getting used to a crate being their den and safe place.   This will make crate training much easier for you when they come home which will therefore also make housetraining much easier as well!!!  They are getting used to using the doggie door which I have propped open for now, but before they go home I will start letting it go closed so that they learn how to open it with their noses too.  They can go in and out whenever they want to during the day which is helping them learn that they need to go outside to go pottey!!

The little monsters, I mean darlin’s, are growing faster than I can keep up with!!!  Probably close to 10 pounds each!!  They eat puppy mush three times per day for now, plus lots of treats when they come when called and follow me around in the yard.   Sometimes, it must look like I am the Pied Piper of Puppies as they parade themselves out following me!!!  Their teeth are pretty much all the way in and they KNOW how to use them too!!!   This week Rainbow has a vet appointment to see if that REALLY is a dermoid? – I begin to think NOT cause it doesn’t feel like any of the ones I’ve had before – and they will ALL be getting checked over by my vet so that we can ALL start picking WHICH ONE!!!!!  YEAH!!!!   Show puppies must get selected FIRST!!  My Vet, Dr Michelle Jensen, who is also a VERY good friend (she owns Indy/Independence from the Born in the USA litter!!!), goes over them with a fine tooth comb checking hearts, lungs, teeth, belly buttons, tails, testicles, ridges, dew claw removal sites, etc… etc…. so that their will be NO SURPRISES when your new puppy comes home and goes to visit YOUR vet.  We have a rather extensive form that we fill out on each puppy to make notes about their vet exam and you will receive a copy of that along with all their other health records – ie, wormings, shots, microchips etc….  Their AKC papers came last week too so they are all assigned their number now!!!
 
We took close ups of everyone, in hopes that you can really see their faces. It rained all weekend so outdoor photos were not an option after all!   Sigh.     With the exception of the mask distinction and the amount of white, they really look a LOT alike!!!   This is a REALLY pretty litter of pups, and all have their parents beautiful heads!!!  

Only 2 more weeks to go until our “WEE (who are anything BUT  “wee” anymore!) Wuns” are ready to meet their new families!


I am REALLY going to miss my Dublin Dozen!!



April 30, 2007
Playin' on the GREEN!!! was the name of the game this week!!     WOW!!  The Dublin Dozen had a big FULL week!!!  All of my children were home from California and Montana for a 50th SURPRISE Birthday Party for their Dad sooooo........ lots of puppy play time was had by all!!!  

It went from Winter to Summer this week too (85 degrees yesterday!) so the Little Heathens, I mean Darlin's, got turned out in the BIG puppy play yard for the first time too!!   They have BIG rocks to run around, a BIG dead tree to climb and jump on, fun toys, and lots of GREEN grass to roll and play in!!!!   They are tired little puppies at the end of the day.  As you all will soon learn - a tired puppy, is a GOOD puppy!!!

GOOD NEWS!!!  Rainbow does NOT have a dermoid sinus so no surgery is necessary for her after all.   This week they will have their final vet check, third and final worming, first set of puppy shots, and get microchipped.   I've been putting their going home packets together and getting their bags packed so they are ready to go!!!

I have also been making flight arrangements or going home plans for each of the pups.  Thank goodness for answering machines when playing telephone tag this past week!!!  I'll be talking to all of you again this week to finalize who is your baby and when will they be coming HOME!!!   Are you picking out names yet???

My daughter, Jade, who is my webmaster and a photographer, took lots of pictures.  Enjoy !!!  I've also attached some more 'puppy advice'.   Do you have your three ring binder started yet?  A section for all the pictures you've already gotten?  A section for puppy advice?  a section for all the health information you will be getting? a place for the registration papers, microchip papers, pedigree?    I use the plastic envelopes as it just makes it soooo much easier!!

In honor of the Dublin Dozen, I wrote a limerick for them!!!   Feel free to write your own and send them in!!!

There once was a Rhodesian named Meg
Who taught her twelve puppies to beg.
I decided to risk it,
And showed them a biscuit
Lucky I was to escape with a leg!!!


May 4, 2007
Irish eyes are SMILIN today!!!   The first of the Dublin Dozen have gone home and boy
are their families SMILIN” no matter what their heritage!!!

Final vet check went well.   We created a check list where we can note EVERYTHING we
can think of so that no one has ANY surprises when their puppy comes home and has
their first checkup with the new vet.   A copy of the checklist is included with all the
other health records.  The micro-chipping with a REALLY big needle went well too.  My
helpers (including the vet!) get pretty squeamish sometimes when they see the size of
that needle!!!  The chip is right between the shoulder blades where I hope it will stay,
but sometimes those darn things like to migrate!!!

The real fun begins NOW when our new puppy families get to experience house training,
crate training, alpha dog training, and a My Puppy Bites! reality check!  Remember I am
here to help you, so call or e-mail anytime!!!

I look forward to seeing pictures of ‘the Dozen’ with their new families and hearing what
their new names are!!!   

No takers on the Limericks ??!!!  Whatz up with that !!!  J   Enjoy the Final Family Fotos
of the Doublin Dozen !!

LUCK OF THE IRISH TO YA’ !!!   Grandma June

Irish eyes are SMILIN today!!!   The first of the Dublin Dozen have gone home and boy
are their families SMILIN” no matter what their heritage!!!

Final vet check went well.   We created a check list where we can note EVERYTHING we
can think of so that no one has ANY surprises when their puppy comes home and has
their first checkup with the new vet.   A copy of the checklist is included with all the
other health records.  The micro-chipping with a REALLY big needle went well too.  My
helpers (including the vet!) get pretty squeamish sometimes when they see the size of
that needle!!!  The chip is right between the shoulder blades where I hope it will stay,
but sometimes those darn things like to migrate!!!

The real fun begins NOW when our new puppy families get to experience house training,
crate training, alpha dog training, and a My Puppy Bites! reality check!  Remember I am
here to help you, so call or e-mail anytime!!!

I look forward to seeing pictures of ‘the Dozen’ with their new families and hearing what
their new names are!!!   

No takers on the Limericks ??!!!  Whatz up with that !!!     Enjoy the Final Family Fotos
of the Doublin Dozen !!

LUCK OF THE IRISH TO YA’ !!!   Grandma June

Missed a progress report?  That's okay, you can read all about our little Lads and Lassies here.