Just added some great agility pictures like this one to Tish’s page!
Nina is doing great, she is very mellow and cuddly, which is not unusual for this stage of her cycle, but it does seem like she is MORE mellow and MORE cuddly than usual. She is also licking everything and anything in sight – she is always a licky dog, but she is REALLY licky just now. If she is pregnant, she is three weeks pregnant as of yesterday, already a THIRD of the way through!
We had a very nice visit with my cousin Susan and her daughter Rebecca (my god-daughter) this weekend. Tish always loves having company, since she’s a social butterfly, but she was absolutely enthralled with Rebecca, sleeping on her lap and following her around and buzzing at her for pats and attention. Nina opted to sit on Rebecca’s lap and be cuddled and admired and needy rather than play with Tish and Rakki outside for a while yesterday…I hope that means she’s pregnant! I’m looking for signs and omens like a crazy person just now!
Today is the first likely day for the blastocysts (the proto-grublets) to start implanting in the uterine wall. We’re doing our best to keep Nina fairly quiet, as this can be a little fragile, the fact that it’s hot and humid is helping. I’ve started mixing in a lower calcium food (high calcium can lead to uterine inertia and eclampsia at whelping time), once we’re past implantation stage, she’ll go entirely onto the lower calcium food. She’ll be happy about that, since I’ve chosen to feed Love, made by The Honest Kitchen, and Nina LOVES it. The only reason she’s not on it already is that it has flaxseed in it and there is some thought that it’s best not to feed flax until after implantation.
Tish earned her first AKC Q today in Jumpers with a lovely run! The timer malfunctioned, so you hear the buzzer go off before we’re finished, so we were given the option to take standard course time or rerun. I reran…won’t do that again! Our rerun was a disaster, so since you can’t do WORSE on a rerun, we ended up with standard course time anyway!
Tish JWW (first AKC Q) – look at those weaves!:
Tish Standard (she knocked the first bar, and that threw her off from the start, I opted to just work on speed and end on a really up and happy note, so I didn’t fix anything after the second try at the weaves. REALLY happy with her table performance and the speed she was showing near the end! Need to reward the teeter a TON):
THANK YOU MARI AMIOKA! I had my camera with me but forgot to ask anyone to record, but Mari happened to record us on her iPad, awesome!
Today was great, no Q’s, but Tish was really starting to work like an agility dog. Still puppy brain here and there, and inexperience, but she is working really nicely, I am thrilled with her.
Jumpers:
Standard (I told her to stop too early on the dogwalk, but she sure listened! Another teeter bail-off, we obviously have some work to do, although she’s been doing it really well and consistently in practice, but look at that table!):
Tish and I attended Western Lakes AKC agility today, Nina was completely outraged to be left behind, poor baby!
This was Tish’s first “official” AKC trial (she ran one day at the National Specialty last year, but that was just for fun, she was nowhere near ready). I was THRILLED with how well she did today! The FAST send was really hard, the Open one was easier than the Novice. She did her teeter in FAST just fine, but I could tell she was worried about it in Standard. BUT!!!! She got her weaves in Standard on her first try! You can’t quite hear it on the video, but I was shrieking with delight at her! And look at that table! You don’t make the same mistakes twice, you just make new ones…
Tish Novice FAST (look at her go!):
Tish Novice Standard:
Very happy with this one, she came back and worked after going to the teeter and dogwalk (I think she was worried about the teeter).
Nina is 100% back to normal today. She wants to run and play and isn’t supposed to yet (she has to stay fairly quiet until tomorrow). She was a bit subdued yesterday (not a surprise), but her normal self today. She managed to get her onesie off some time in the night (she’s wearing a baby onesie to discourage licking her little incision) because she is Houdini. The fertilized eggs will not implant until 18-20 days after ovulation, so right now they are just floating around like little spacemen.
Here is Tempest’s contribution (about 70% motility after being unfrozen, which is apparently very good):
Here are Dr. Hutchison and Renee (and Nina under there), shortly before he gave me the thumbs up that all looked good (no cysts, everything looked very healthy he said):
And here we are afterwards:
They called me in around 10:30 am and we were in recovery by 10:50. Now we’re back home!
Her progesterone is 21.9 so we are going ahead! They have stolen her away from me to prep her and will call me to come back when they are ready so I can watch!
We have arrived at Animal Clinic Northview. We met Renee and Dr. Hutchison, drew some blood for another progesterone test just to make sure all is well, and now we’re waiting for results…
This is reception :
And this is Nina wondering why no treats for her in reception:
Saturday’s results finally came in last night after midnight (yes, I stayed up, why do you ask?)Â 7.1 ng/mL! Finally!
That means she ovulated some time between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. Which is day 20-21! And remember, that’s not predictive of her next heat, either, since it can vary from heat to heat even in the same dog!
The whelping date should be about August 3-4. (it’s 63 days from ovulation, not breeding)
Anyway, after talking to Kim and Renee at Animal Clinic Northview, we have an appointment tomorrow morning for 9 AM! Tomorrow is the day! I will probably drive out there tonight, since it’s a four hour drive. FURTHER BULLETINS AS EVENTS WARRANT!
