4th October 2009

 

The pups are going from strength to strength, we have even had bark from one them today...funniest noise you have ever heard from such a small little buddle!

 

Africa continues to excel at motherhood, aiming for the all-time accolade of best 1st time mum ever …. She has her own mum, India, to beat for that one!

 

What makes her such a special mum? …. She’s always aware of her pups and their position under her, when she feeds them she goes to a corner of the pen and calls them over so that she does not sit or lay on them

accidentally…. She keeps her pen and the pups scrupulously clean …. Is not distracted by noises or movements outside the pen which make other mums get up and disturb the feed….. Does exactly what we ask her to do…. does not whine when outside the pen to go in, does not whine inside the pen to come out….. Does not disturb her pups feed for her own food requirements ….. is extremely loving to her pups, is always cuddling up to them ….. and she exudes a calmness around the puppies that is sure to rub off on them for their future wellbeing.

 

She makes us feel so proud of her, she is fantastic!!

 

30th September 2009

 

All the pups are now reserved! As we stated earlier, the enquiry level for our beautiful Africa’s litter has been nothing short of astonishing and we have had to unfortunately disappoint many people who wanted a puppy.

 

We discovered one of the male pups could not get the hang of the suckling business, didn’t realise he had to pad on the side of the teet at the same time as sucking, so with a bit of training he has now got a hand of things and seems much more content after each feed!! Lol! You always learn something new with each litter…:-)

 

29th September 2009

 

Our beautiful Africa gave birth to 12 puppies on Sunday morning at a rather early 4am. Sadly, 2 of the puppies were stillborn.

 

The last puppy was born at 4pm, leaving between an hour and two and a half hours between births which is quite long compared to our other girls litters. The long gaps between births probably contributing to the stillborns.

 

She gave birth to 8 boys and 2 girls, and even though she was 4 days early they are all of a great weight and size, between 420g and 600g each, and all very thrifty and noisy!

 

For a first-time mum Africa is amazingly careful around her pups, not at all clumsy, very similar to her mum,

India.