“Do you sleep by the whelping box when a first-time bitch is due to whelp? Have you breathed life into a stillborn puppy? And cried when it died… Have you studied pedigrees, planned the breeding, and watched the litter grow as proudly as the owner of a Kentucky Derby Winner once did? Then you can say with pride… Yes, I am a breeder (article by Cindy Smith).

As someone who is involved with dog and equine rescues, is on multiple dog e-mail lists, reads twitter, facebook, etc. I am aware that there are those who feel breeding any animal is a terrible thing. The “don’t buy while those in shelters die” mentality is that for every puppy born another dies in a shelter. I don’t buy that theory as many of us who are committeed to our breeds also rescue them and make room for “one more” many times at our homes. If I hadn’t gotten so involved with Labradors and Pugs including joining regional and national clubs for each breed, I probably wouldn’t have also gotten involved with rescue and placed who knows how many (100, more?) in new loving homes. I’m sure I never would have co-founded LABMED as I wouldn’t have had the ties with fellow breeders who helped and continue to help LABMED with their contributions.

Yes, there are bad “breeders” but they probably shouldn’t be called breeders but rather “producers” as they only care about making a product and not what happens to the pups the rest of their lives. They are a different type of person from the responsible breeders I know and hang out with. I and my breeder friends will always take back any dog that we placed as a puppy or adult dog. In fact most of us have contracts that insist the dog come back to us but sometimes people either have lost our contact info or sadly don’t want to admit they are having a problem with their dog or can’t keep it due to life changes so dump it in a shelter or on rescue. One friend, when notified a Lab rescue had just gotten in a dog with papers that showed her as a breeder, drove at 10 at night to the foster home that had the dog to reclaim him. So I was really happy to find the above article on line today as it really describes what I go through each time we have a litter of puppies here. This is the essence of a responsible breeder, one who always puts the dogs’ (or other animals) needs before their own need to eat or sleep.

So like Cindy Smith, I am proud to say “Yes, I am a breeder”.

This post doesn’t have to do with people romance but rather the loss of our beloved animal companions. Since I own a lot of dogs I also have to deal with this loss more frequently than many pet owners do. Each time I have had a particularly hard loss it seems that a needy dog has appeared, perhaps sent by the other one from across the Rainbow Bridge.

Buster is one of those who I believe was sent for a reason. Buster is a pug that I meant to foster for the pug rescue and find him the right forever home. I was still grieving for my Lily (my first ever pug) even though it had been months since her death. Buster was rapidly dumped off at our home by his previous (and 3rd) owner and it was apparent the frequent switching of homes had left him with some baggage. Despite the baggage (upset/screaming if crated, separation anxiety, hanging on your legs when you tried to go through a door, etc.) he had redeeming qualities, too. He loved to play with my big dogs once he adjusted to them but wasn’t too interested in my other pugs. He was immediately retrieving balls and playing “tug” with toys. A dog like this needs a job, not to sit on someone’s lap and I think my husband expressed the thought first that we really should just keep him. The very first night we had Buster he was so distressed I decided to take him to bed with us and he snuggled up against me in the same spot Lily always did. I realized he had been sent by her to comfort me but I didn’t want to let myself love him. I took him to a couple of obedience classes and then I took him to an agility class. He took to it immediately although we had to work through the distractions of other dogs working and him wanting to just run off and do his own thing. We switched to a smaller class which helped a lot with his focus. At this point he is improving on being crated, we have gone to matches, done some agility demos and even been in a couple of trials now. He has his first agility title but we are still working on being a team.

Today we went to another agility match. He has trialed at this same place and often tries to run out of the ring so I was prepared to deal with that and give him positive reinforcement for coming back to me. Much to my surprise and delight not only did he run both courses fast and accurately but he never once tried to leave the ring. When we left the building after his second run I felt like I now had an agility teammate. I realized that loving Buster does not take away from the love I have for my Lily but it does help her loss not hurt so badly now.

As we got to the car I heard a sandhill crane in the distance. This is in town and I’ve not heard sandhills at that place before. Soon it was closer and it was then I felt my Lily’s presence. Ironically this week was the 4 year anniversary since she left me. I think she was telling me “I’m still watching over you, good job.”. I’m glad no one saw me crying out by the car.

If you are interested, these are two other blog posts about the messengers who my dogs have sent to me in the past.

Messengers From Beyond

Turbo Now Has Wings

Our part of Wisconsin got totally shut down by a huge blizzard that started 12/8 and went through yesterday. All schools and the university were closed, all government offices were closed, the clinic I work at was closed. We were totally stranded due to huge drifts in our driveway until someone could come last night to plow us out.

My a.m. started when I tried to turn the dogs out about 7 a.m. and could not open either of our doors to the outside due to huge drifts (which you will see in the photos). We finally had to take out a pane of glass on the storm door so I could climb through it to the other side, shovel out around the door and let the dogs out. The snow is extremely heavy and wet so I could only get it shoveled out enough to open the door wide enough for us to squeeze through. My husband, Kent, can do NO shoveling as unfortunately Kent had a heart attack last Friday so we aren’t going to be shovelled out for quite some time I’m afraid.

To get to the barn I had to walk on the edge of the fence due to hip deep drifts and since no gates would open had to climb over the fence. Walking through the hip deep drifts was too strenuous for Kent right now so he managed to get into the hay mow (which is level by our driveway) then I lowered the stairs so he could climb down into the barn. We had to kick snow out of the way to slide open one side of the barn door.

Here are some photos from the farm showing the amount of snow we are dealing with.

Now the sky is a magnificent shade of blue today and the winds have started dying down but it is only zero out with wind chills in the minus 20s so winter has hit us hard in a very short period of time.

Halloween is always bitter sweet for me because I remember my heart dog, Reilly, who I will miss the rest of my life, being born on that day now 21 years ago.

However this year I also have the joy of having 4 generations of my bloodline alive and well in my house and today I was able to get a photo of the four girls together.

Ali is now 11 1/2 and the mother of Jazz who will be 7 tomorrow. Next to Jazz is her young daughter, River, age 16 weeks and next to River is Nessie who is Ali’s mom/Jazz’s grandmother/River’s great grandmother.

We had a litter of Labrador Retrievers born on 7/12/09 so they are now 10 weeks old. Today I took one of my Labs to the Retriever Club http://dunnsmarshlabs.com/bbfarmblog/wp-admin/post-new.php#to work on some issues before our next hunt test and also decided to take Jazz and the female pup we are keeping, River. Basically my goal was to introduce River to a new environment in a positive manner. If she went near or into the water, great, but I wasn’t going to force her.

River was very excited to get out and check out this new place and right away went running after her mom. Pretty soon Jazz was back in the water and River was really watching her trying to figure out what her mom was doing. Soon she was testing the water. Of course she had to test it by drinking it. The bank was very slippery clay so she didn’t actually get in and swim today but still it was a good, positive start. We will try a different pond tomorrow since the nice weather is still holding.

We have a litter of Labrador puppies here, born on 7/12/09 so thought I would share a couple of photos of them.

Everybody always talks about the sweet smell of “puppy breath”. If you haven’t smelled it I really have no way to describe it to you but any dog breeder knows what I am talking about. So what causes this delightful (to dog lovers anyways) smell that only lasts a short time? The theories I have found say that vets guess that puppy breath is a result of their healthy, mild diet of mother’s milk and then puppy food, and the enzymes that break the food down.

Since puppies don’t eat “big dog” or table food, they don’t have “big dog” mouth bacteria or the plaque problems older dogs develop so their mouths are clean thus no bad breath.

Can’t you just imagine the puppy breath just looking at these sleeping babies?
More information and photos of our sweet pups can be found on our web site.

Last week at least three very sad and preventable incidents occurred due to people leaving dogs in vans/cars during the very hot (90s) weather.

Last Sunday night a “handler” (a person who shows dogs for other people for a living) got home late at night and according to the news stories decided it was too hot in the garage she kept clients’ dogs in so left them in the van they had traveled in. Supposedly there were fans on the dogs with windows, side doors left open.
7 out of 8 dogs in the van died.

Read the latest article about this tragedy.

Also last week a man decided to take in a movie while leaving his Lab in his car with no windows open.

See this article.
I just wish someone had broken the window out as soon as the dog was noticed — his temperature was 111 at the vet clinic where he died. The owner is being prosecuted.

Closer to home I got an e-mail Friday evening that made me ill — an agility student e-mailed me to tell me she would no longer be at classes this summer because she forgot she had left her two dogs in the car when she got home and both dogs died of heat stroke. Knowing these dogs, it made me very upset to think about them suffering and dieing in their own driveway. I don’t know exactly what happened and probably won’t but I do know I would have trouble forgiving myself if this happened to any of my dogs.

PLEASE don’t take your dog with you when it is hot outside. Even when it is 70 degrees outside a car sitting in the sun can heat up quickly and soon be over 100 degrees inside. Since dogs wear fur coats and don’t sweat they can only expel heat through panting and a little bit of sweating through their paws. Their body temperature can heat up to over 108 degrees in 5 minutes in those temperatures then they can have seizures and die. These are deaths that all could have been prevented. Say a prayer for those owners that loved their dogs, hug your dogs and leave them home in the air conditioning unless you can take them inside whereever you are going.

The My Dog is Cool Campaign operated by United Animal Nations lets people know that leaving a dog in a car for even “just a few minutes” may be too long.

To order or download educational fliers and posters, or to enter your zip code and find out if it is too hot to bring your dog in the car, visit:

www.MyDogIsCool.com

There is a temperature monitor and alarm you can put in your car, truck or motorhome that will cause the horn to blow if temperature is over or under a certain range. It is made by Safe Home Products. It isn’t cheap but in all of these cases it could have saved the dogs involved.

Written in memory of Kitzel.

Tonight I hosted a clinic for kids in our county’s 4H dog project to introduce them to agility. We had 15 dogs participate with their owners and I think a fun time was had by all. I especially wanted to show the kids how positive training techniques make it easy for the dogs to learn as I don’t think they get a lot of exposure to those techniques. I was fortunate to have my friends Jeff and Michelle helping out so all the kids got plenty of assistance. All the dogs ended up doing great and there isn’t one of them that couldn’t do agility in the future. If you are a dog training instructor please consider offering 4H clinics or classes at discounted rates so kids can get exposure to all the fun they can have with their dogs. Kids are the future of our sport and I love teaching them. I hope to arrange a 4H dog agility class session for later this summer.

Yesterday I had a great opportunity to educate the general public about the fun of dog agility. I was asked to do a demo at a 10th anniversary celebration for Country View Vet Clinic. They had booths, educational talks, vendors and many demos such as dressage, polo, natural horsemanship, sheep herding, canine freestyle and my agility demo. We were given a large round pen to use so it was fenced which pleased my students but a naughty little pug was able to easily slip under it. I ran Buster, my rescued pug, at the very end of the demo when I had finished announcing and said people were welcome to watch me practice with my dogs so they understood he was new to it.

He did the first jump, went off to sniff, did second jump, dog walk and a jump, sniffed, then did the tunnel, then ran under the ring fence to pee, then did a jump, then back to the edge to pee, etc. However this was an improvement since in the past he would have run off to go after other dogs, run after horses, etc. which he didn’t and each time he returned to work he got a bunch of treats. Very humbling but it was a good example to the spectators of how to be positive when your dog does ANYTHING right. My husband, who came to help haul equipment and has never been to a trial, got a lot of laughs out of his behavior……

Of course Jazz was crazy since it was cool out and she had to wait in the car for the very end! The crowd loved her though.

It was a fun thing to do, we had a great crowd and I appreciate all my wonderful students taking time out of their day to run in the demo. And a big thanks to Tracy Jane Photography for sending me these great photos from the demo.

The results are in and it appears that a Portuguese Water Dog will soon be moving into the White House. Apparently the choice of getting a puppy needing re-homing through its breeder rather than a puppy being re-homed through a rescue or shelter has some people upset. However the Obama family needed to make a decision on a new family member based on what dog would fit in best with them and their needs and I applaud them for taking their time and finding the breed and dog that is right for their situation. As I understand it, it would likely be difficult to find a PWD in a shelter as there aren’t that many bred each year and this breed’s breeders do a great job in making sure all puppies are properly placed and in taking responsibility for all dogs they have bred. I wish some of the breeders in my primary breed (Labradors) would be as conscientious!

There is an interview with the breeder of the soon to be First Pet at The Pet Connection Blog if you are curious about where the pup is coming from. Sounds like a good person who loves her breed and wants the best for all her puppies.

I hope the Obama’s have lots of fun with their new family member.