Puppies?

Not so much anymore! Man how they've grown and time has flown by. Sorry I didn't get any of Tee by herself. I thought I had this amazing picture of her but once I got it uploaded it was all blurry, so I'll have to try again later.

Dixie

Tee in back Dixie in front

Banjo

Ace

Ace is a really nice pup and is an excellent prospect for sheep or cattle. Check out his sire, Blaze, and his dam Tess' pages for more info and see the past trial pages for his parents trial accomplishments. Blaze and Tess were both DNA tested clear for CEA. I kept four pups from this litter because I can't decide who I want to keep and train and my husband says we've got to get down to two eventually and since he's keeping the other male, Ace is looking for his new home. Ace has been started on some basic obedience. He's learning to sit and walk on a leash and is kenneling up well now. He's also finished with his puppy shots and has been on heartworm preventitive. These pups have been handled more than daily since birth and are well socialized and love to be with people. Please email us for more information and to set up a time to come out and meet Ace and see his parents work. $350 to working home only. Sports homes will be considered with a neuter contract. http://www.baxterbordercollies.com/

My Excuse

Here's my excuse for being late on the pics. Or better yet, several of my reasons. All the nasty weather is here and I only have 4 ewes left to lamb. I was hoping they cross their legs and wait for warmer weather, but that was not the case. Three of the four decided today was the day. We had 2 sets of twins and another set of triplets. Total lamb count as of this moment is 23 lambs from 11 ewes, with one left to go. Plus 3 bottle babies. Please Frosty wait until it warms up, but with a name like that it seems highly unlikely.

Jaycee examining a new lamb

One of my favorite ewes and her triplets. We bought a ram and 2 ewes 3 years ago when we first got started and she is one of them. She has been an awesome producer for us and gave us a nice set of triplets this year, two ewe lambs and a ram lamb. The other ewe we bought with her just had triplets this morning.

This is the above ewes daughter, and is from the first set of lambs we ever had born. She was a triplet and this is her first set of triplets.

This is Alfalfa, one of our Little Rascals themed bottle lambs we got from Susan. Jaycee is being quite the mother hen, or mother sheep shall we say. Jaycee says thanks Susan! Not pictured: Spanky & Darla.

Puppies at 5 Weeks

Sorry the pics are a little late. Pics of the reason I've been busy are to follow. :)

Female 1

Male 1

Female 2

Male 2

Female 3

Male 3

Puppy Update

I cannot believe these guys are over a month old already. Where the heck did February go? Not that I miss the cold dreary weather. Bring on Spring! The sure signs of spring are popping up, or should I say out, here at our little ranch. Our first lamb hit the ground yesterday morning and the ewes are promising many more to come.

Taking the first steps out the door for the first time.

Female 1

Male 1

Female 2

Male 2

Male 3

Female 3

We Have Eyes!

Yep, the pups are a little over 2 weeks now and have eyes and ears open. They are starting to look more like puppies and less like little hamsters. :) They are starting to toddle around and are very curious everytime someone goes in or out of their room. We spend a lot of time everyday out with the puppies, like it or not. Which of course we do like it. :) Jaycee is absolutely wild about them and can tell them all apart already. I can't wait for another couple weeks when they are really mobile and get to see her enjoying them. When Josh and I took her out there Mon. evening and their eyes were all open you'd have thought it was Christmas all over again. She hollered and jumped up and down and said, "Momma, I can see their eyes!" Then of course that called for every pup to have a thorough exam by Jaycee to make sure they could see well. Having pups was always a ton of fun for me in the past, but now getting to share this experience with Jaycee makes it incredible. More pics next week.

Salon Pics

Wow! I'm on a roll. Two posts in one day, I'm sure that's probably a record!

The View From the Front Door

No Picture of Foo-Foo Dogs in My Salon! LOL

My Cage Banks

My Grooming Area With a View to Jaycee's Room

The Bathing Area

Puppies!

So I'm a week late updating the blog, what else is new? Puppies! That's what's new. Tess gave birth to 6 beautiful pups on Feb. 7th. There are 3 males and 3 females. Three of them are black and white and 3 of them are black and white tricolored. What a perfect little litter they are.

Tess got started about 9:30 that night and I was watching her on the monitor from the house and knew she was having hard contractions and starting to push. I let her be and didn't bother her for a little while and I decided I needed to go check things out because as much as she was pushing, there should have been a pup. So I bundled up and out I went and sure enough there were back puppy feet and nothing else. I let her alone and seen if she got any further on her own and I decided to take action when those tiny toes started turning blue. I grabbed a towel and pulled when she pushed and after a lot longer than I was comfortable with we finally got her out. She wasn't breathing and I was fearing the worst. I did all the puppy shaking and slinging skills I learned from working at the vet's and assisting in c-sections and finally got the little girl to take a couple breaths and then that was it, I thought she had given up on me, but I wasn't about to give up on her without a fight. So I continued on and within another couple minutes she finally came around and started breathing regularly. At the time I was so focused on getting her going that I didn't have time to panic, but after she was laying with Tess getting cleaned off it finally sank in that I'd almost lost her. I was so releived! The next 2 pups came without any assistance and it was smooth sailing. She took a rather long break between the 3rd and 4th pup and the 5th pup came about an hour after the 4th. At this point, I was completely exhausted and decided to leave the rest to Tess since all seemed well. I knew she had at least one more pup in there, but I figured it would come when it was ready and headed into the house around 3 or 4. When Josh got up to go to work (I had already scheduled the day off) he told me she still hadn't had it. When I woke up that morning I figured I'd be getting dressed and rushing Tess in to the vet to get that last pup out, but thankfully, there was the entire happy family nursing and doing well. So to all the folks that think I'm crazy for staying up with my girl and not "letting nature take its course," I would have lost the first pup for sure and possibly the rest had I not been there. I planned the breeding, I was there when it happened, and I take full responsibility for all the lives I had a part in creating. So what's a few hours of lost sleep when there are 6 healthy pups because of it?

So without further wait....

The Happy Family

The black and white girl I almost lost.

Tri-colored Male

Black and White Female

Tri-colored Male

Black and White Male

Tri-colored Female

One Very Happy Jaycee!

Pregosaurus Tess

Yep, that's Tess' nickname these last couple weeks. She is huge to say the least. I couldn't wait any longer so I took her in Tues. to have her x-rayed and get a head count. The tally was... definitely 6, probably 7, and don't be surprised if there's more than that. There wasn't much room left in Tess' belly so the pups were stacked on top of each other pretty good and made it difficult for the vet to see them, but they counted 6 skulls for sure. There was a blurry place that they thought might be another pup, but couldn't tell 100%. So, my hopes of a small litter are gone, but I can't wait to see these little rascals! I've never been so excited about pups before. I've been wanting to see what Blaze and Tess would produce for so long now and knowing that I'll get to meet the little guys in the next couple of days has put me over the edge. Did I ever mention I'm not the most patient person?
So, business at the grooming shop is going good. So far the amount of clients I've been having come in have far exceeded my expectations for just starting out. Have pics on the camera of the shop too. Maybe I'll have some free time this weekend to get them uploaded.

Stay tuned, those pups are due any day now and I fully intended to blog about them on a regular basis!

A Little of Everything

So much for keeping up with the blog. No matter how good my intentions are, it just never seems to happen. So today I thought I'd do a little typing.

What's been keeping me busy lately? I'm opening my own dog grooming business. I've been grooming pretty much since I graduated high school and worked in a salon after dog grooming school until I had Jaycee. I took off for a year to spend time with my girl and then went to work for the local vet clinic 2 days a week for the past nearly 3 years. I've always dreamed of owning my own business, but I was comfortable with what I was doing so didn't want to take the risk. I got the motivation I needed this summer when Josh's mom had to go back to work and couldn't watch Jaycee anymore. Thanks to a good friend of mine, she didn't have to go to daycare. Now with me having my own business Jaycee will go to work with me everyday. The big opening day is Monday. All we have left to do is a few things like get the signs hung and finish my reception counter. I say we, what I really mean is Josh! :) He's been such a big help to me and I can't thank him enough.

The best part about taking this risk is, if it pays off, that farm I've been dreaming of will become reality much quicker. Everytime I walk outside to work my dogs on my little 5 acre place I am thinking to myself, "I can't wait till I have a big field to practice in." Not that my dogs would even recognize a sheep at this point. None of my dogs have been worked for the last couple weeks while I get things finished on the shop. I'm hoping I'll have some time in the evenings to get back to working them soon. I'm excited about this upcoming year of trialing. I'm hoping to move Blaze up to Open Ranch this year and hopefully I'll have Fly ready for the spring trials to run in Ranch. Josie will be running in Ranch as well. Who knows, if she comes along well this year I might compete with her in the Nursery class this fall. We'll just see how it goes.

Tess will be taking some time off to have pups next month. It wasn't a decision I took lightly at all. I've been thinking about crossing her with Blaze since she first came to me 2 years ago, but I wanted to see how the 2 of them progressed before committing. I was very pleased with both dogs this past year and couldn't think of a pup I wanted more than a pup from those 2. I've already got a few folks interested as well, so last month I finally made the decision to go for it. The plan now is to keep 2 of them to raise and train and either trial myself, or sell started. I really love starting young dogs and the thought of having pups similar to either Blaze or Tess or a mix of the 2 thrills me. So here's to hoping that Feb. 8th brings a healthy litter of working prospects. I bet I'll have something to blog about then.