Yesterday Alice’s progesterone was 0.4 ng/mL. We want to see a 3-4 point jump in a 24 hour period (usually you want to see them hit approximately 5 and then jump) to show ovulation. So not yet! Retest tomorrow.
Usually I test every other day starting on day 3-5 until we need to start testing daily. The only panic will be if we need to breed at a time the repro vet isn’t available but let’s not worry until and unless we need to!
This little drop of blood means Alice is in season! First progesterone test on Monday!
The litter’s registered name theme will be Lotus motor cars that start with “E”
Breeding is planned for fall 2021 using frozen semen (Zar is an older gentleman now!)
Born: TBA
This is a line breeding on Mystarz Bailey’s Blazer (Tempest), who has produced amazing dogs who have been successful in a variety of performance and companion events, and conformation. And this pedigree is actually (I believe) an example of Brackett’s Formula
What can I say about Zar? I first met him when I was stud shopping for my B litter. I absolutely fell in love with him then (I ended up using his father, Tempest, for that litter but always wanted to use Zar at some point. He is an incredible dog with an amazing temperament. Zar was the first Swedish Vallhund to become a dual champion (Silver Grand Champion AND an AKC herding championship, which is very difficult to accomplish), and he is the sire of our breed’s second (and so far only other) dual champion. He is a Swedish Vallhund Club of America Versatility Grand Champion and has titles in agility, Barn Hunt, rally and multiple herding titles. He’s a working dog down to the bone but also sweet, friendly, outgoing, stable, even-tempered and has a solid “off switch”. All that and handsome too (he’s a Silver Grand Champion after all). Zar is a total dog and I am absolutely thrilled to finally have the opportunity to breed to him. I think he and Alice will be a great cross. Zar is OFA Fair, normal elbows, normal cardiac (cardiologist), normal eyes.
Alice is a fantastic working dog with a lovely, stable temperament. Alice has OFA Good hips, normal elbows, normal patellas, normal cardiac status, full dentition and is a Retinopathy carrier. She is an AKC breed champion, is Canadian Kennel Club championship pointed, and has several agility titles.
I will most definitely be prioritizing performance homes for this litter. While they should have “off switches” like all Vallhunds should have, these will hopefully be dogs best suited to homes where they will get to do something like herding, agility, Barn Hunt, etc. While all Vallhunds should make wonderful pets, I expect that these will not be couch potatoes! Vallhunds don’t need hours of exercise every day, but they do need brain exercise and this litter most likely will do best in a home where they have a job. If you would like more information or if you are interested in a puppy, please email me and tell me something about yourself and your home and what you are looking for in a puppy.
After last weekend, when we had one single Q, we had a kick ass day! I worked quite a lot with Alice over the last week and it paid off. Connection, connection, connection, staying slower (not slowing her down but not pushing for speed) and calmer and quieter meant that she went 3/4 on the day, earned her first Excellent Jumpers Q and finished her Open Agility title (she’s all the way into Excellent now!). It also helped that she had two games classes before a “real” class, so we had a chance to warm up and get some kinks out. And Zhora doubled. Quite challenging Laura Kuterbach courses (the ending of Open Standard was significantly harder than the Masters course ending):
Alice Excellent FAST (NQ, training mode, great weaves and ran off to reward):
Zhora Master Standard (QQ #135):
Alice Time 2 Beat (Q, first T2B leg):
Zhora Master Jumpers (QQ #135):
Alice Excellent Jumpers (Q!):
Alice Open Standard (Q, OA title!):
I made some changes, did more practice, and what do you know? It makes a difference!
Alice really, really needs connection, she really needs me to focus on her and get her to focus on me before we run. And she had her best trial day to date! A beautiful T2B run with just one off course. A FAST run where I didn’t connect and she transformed into ALICEALICEALICEHEY! And then qualifying runs in BOTH Jumpers (for her OAJ title, now she moves into Excellent Jumpers) and Standard (for her second OA leg). And weaves on the first try every time. So proud of her!
And Zhora doubled for QQ #134, winning standard and coming fourth in jumpers. She’s like a pair of comfortable slippers that barks and runs fast.
Really proud of my girls.
Alice Time 2 Beat (NQ but really nice run we need to work on our tunnel call offs and discriminations)
Zhora Master Standard (QQ #134):
Alice Excellent FAST (NQ and a great example of what happens when I don’t connect and use clear and calm cues):
Zhora Master Jumpers (QQ):
Alice Open Jumpers (Q, almost 5 YPS, OAJ title):
Alice Open Standard (Q):
I’m so glad Sue started videoing early yesterday, so I can see what I’m doing and, more importantly, what I’m NOT doing. Until the video got messed up in transfer, you could clearly see Alice is seeking connection multiple times at the start of Jumpers and I don’t give it to her. It’s easy to forget how little mileage she has, and how much more connection and support she needs from me. She’s a working dog down to the bone and that’s a really good thing. I need to do better for her. I’m rusty too obviously, especially since I should have recognized how tricky that tunnel (right lead through the rocket launcher) to weaves (left lead and collection) sequence was for a green dog. I didn’t cue a lead change and should have recognized that was needed. So many little things I need to be aware of. I so love this little dog, I see shades of (grandma) baby Nina here. AND HOW ABOUT THE LAST HALF OF THAT JUMPERS RUN!!!??
Zhora earned QQ #133, won Standard and came second in Jumpers. Running her is like putting on comfortable shoes and we’re getting our mojo back.
Alice Time 2 Beat (I didn’t get to walk since there was a mislabeling of the running order, so it was a disaster and I didn’t do our usual warm up and connection routine):
Alice Excellent FAST (ZOOM):
Zhora Standard (QQ #133, first place):
Zhora Jumpers (QQ #133, second place):
Nina’s still on injured reserve so Alice, Zhora and I made the trek to Erie today (and I came home sick from work yesterday so I wasn’t 100% even though I felt better). Zhora had an uncharacteristic double NQ thanks to the EXACT SAME HANDLER ERROR in both her runs, and Alice had two really nice NQ’s. Her Standard run today is probably one of my favorite runs we’ve had so far, especially since we had over a year off trialing thanks to the pandemic. I am really loving what I’m seeing in her, she’s brave and forward, not afraid of mistakes and always happy to try again, and stresses UP UP UP. I’m also seeing what we need to work more on, but overall I’m very happy, so proud of my girls. And SO HAPPY TO SEE FRIENDS I HADN’T SEEN IN WAY TOO LONG!!!
Zhora Master Standard (nice run, NQ):
Zhora Master Jumpers (nice run, NQ IN THE EXACT SAME SPOT):
Alice Open Jumpers (wild but some good stuff, NQ):
Alice Open Standard (really nice run, NQ):
April 24 & 25 Nina, Zhora and I went to an agility trial for the first time since last August. It was great, they did great, I went into the weekend thinking if Nina told me she was ready to retire then I’d just scratch her and that would be that. Well, she ran and loved it and was Nina, older and slower for sure, but Nina nonetheless. This was less than a month before her 14th birthday.
Over the last year or so a couple of her liver values on her bloodwork had been elevated. Not concerningly high by any means, but above normal. Her liver function tests were always normal. She’s been on Denamarin (a liver supplement) for a while and she’d been acting just fine, like the extremely young-for-her-age senior citizen she is. But the last urinalysis we did showed a lower than normal concentration (USG), which was repeatable on subsequent testing. So now we had a concern about her kidneys (older animals can have kidney failure, not great but also not terrible since there’s a lot we can do to manage it). So I booked her an ultrasound with our usual radiologist Dr Homco, who I usually take my dogs to once a year or so for a screening, but thanks to COVID, we hadn’t been since January 2020.
That was the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend, and I came into work on Tuesday after Memorial Day to Dr Homco’s report on the fax machine.
Nina had a mass in her liver. Approximately 6 cm.
In her voicemail to Dr Stein, she said she couldn’t determine malignant vs benign (and she often can), which I guess is better than “it’s malignant”, but either way a mass on your liver isn’t something you want. Dr Stein (who is the best veterinarian I have ever known) sat down with me and had a long discussion about what our options were. Number one was do nothing, ultrasound her again in 4-6 weeks and see what it looked like then. Number two was get a CT or MRI done to learn more about it (operable or not). Number three was explore her, either him or a boarded surgeon.
I called around out of interest and we were looking at several weeks to months before a CT, MRI or surgical specialist consult were available. And aside from anything else, while Nina is a vibrant and very young 14, she’s still 14 and has age-related heart valve disease and kidneys that aren’t 100%, in addition to whatever was up with her liver. Plus we’d done a dental on her a few weeks before and her blood pressure was hard to manage during that procedure. I am fortunate that Dr Stein has a special interest in anesthesia and analgesia, and our anesthetic protocol and management where I work is second to none (he runs a website for other vets to help them perform better anesthesia, and he’s lectured internationally about anesthesia and pain management). I wasn’t sure I trusted the anesthesia anywhere else for a dog with her anesthetic challenges, plus Dr Stein had extensive post-doc surgical training and is an excellent surgeon, and I absolutely trust his skill in the OR.
Jim and I talked about it, and I went into work the next day and said we wanted surgery. Dr Stein said “here?” and I said “yes” and he said “putting the surgeon to the test huh?”. We’d done a liver surgery on an 11 year old Golden Retriever in March (his mass was benign), and I absolutely trust Dr Stein and the amazing staff I work with, so I felt this was our best shot. He said we’d better do it soon if we were going to do it (especially because he had some time off coming up). So we did a chest x-ray right away to be sure there weren’t any lung metastases (she has an old lady chest and an enlarged heart, which we already knew, but nothing obviously ominous per the radiology consultant). And so then last Tuesday (June 8), was the day. I knew she might not make it, but I needed to know what that mass was, and far better to do the surgery while she was feeling great, full of energy and not showing any symptoms. The weekend before we spoiled her rotten, took her for nice walks, made a fuss of her (even more than normal, because she’s Nina), called Ulla (Nina’s breeder) and had a long talk and a good cry (Nina’s great grandmother Cranberi had a 7 cm liver tumor and lived for 2 years afterward as an old lady). All “just in case”.
The techs and Dr Stein had a meeting on Monday to discuss the surgery (we do this with any complex case), Linda had mentioned after the dental that maybe we should do Total Intravenous Anesthesia (TIVA) for her next procedure so we could manage her blood pressure and heart rate better. So that was the plan.
I brought her in Tuesday morning and cried (I’ve cried a lot over the last couple of weeks). I wasn’t second guessing the decision at all but I knew it was a risky surgery. Dr Stein was already there when I arrived (and I get there at 6:30 or earlier), I buzzed up and said good morning and “how are you feeling?” and he said “ready to take on the liver!”.
She was first on the schedule that day (to leave all the rest of the day for monitoring her for complications). And in addition, that was the day I was scheduled to get my Invisalign fitted (my teeth have moved and are very crowded now and are chipping each other because they’re hitting each other). Not a relaxing day! Bekka buzzed down to me and said they were going to poke her (that means give her her pre-anesthetic sedative injection) and did I want to come hold her for it (I usually do hold my dogs for this, and you can bet I wanted to hold Nina).
The mass was significantly bigger than Dr Homco thought it was (which either means it had grown, or just that she wasn’t able to completely visualize it). Dr Stein got the best margins he could get. Fortunately it was on the left lobe of her liver, which is the lobe that can be completely removed, so he took the entire lobe and as much as he safely could get. There was at least a small amount of apparently healthy liver that he took, so we will have to hope it’s enough.
She was up and BAR (which means Bright Alert and Responsive) pretty quickly after the procedure, and started the usual spinning around that she always does post-anesthesia (which makes running an IV and CRI (constant rate infusion) difficult to impossible). I went up to see her and Bekka said “that’s a healthy dog”, meaning that for a 14 year old dog to be that bright that soon after surgery she was in good shape. Her packed cell volume (PCV) was 38-40 throughout (normal is over 38, we get worried the lower it gets, since lower than that is anemic). Bekka texted me pictures of her looking comfortable and alert while I was at the orthodontist.
I took her home Tuesday night since she was way too active for an overnight CRI (I’d planned to sleep at the clinic with her) and we didn’t want to give her too much additional sedation. I gave her oral meds that night and she had a good and quiet night Tuesday and looked great on Wednesday.
Thursday she started out the day OK (I was bringing her to work every day for monitoring), but then mid morning she suddenly got pale (her gums were pale) and very weak and droopy. Her PCV was down to 33 and all of a sudden things looked bad. We were worried she might die. Dr Stein was very stressed. He said “we do not, NOT, want to put her through another surgery”. We talked through what might be going on: it didn’t seem likely that she was septic since her temperature was normal; it didn’t seem likely that she was hemorrhaging since her PCV wasn’t continuing to drop. We took x-rays and they looked unremarkable for a post-op dog (also another confirmation that there were no obvious chest mets), and you’d expect to see something on an x-ray if she was septic or bleeding. The hopeful sign was that she didn’t continue to get worse, she went down in a valley but then started to climb back up.
Bekka came and told me she thought she was looking a bit better. Then Linda buzzed me and put me on speaker so I could hear that Nina was barking and complaining about being in jail (she was upstairs in case they needed to act fast if she crashed). I carried her downstairs and took her for a short walk and she urinated and then tried to drag me over to the car so we could go home. She was pretty much back to where she’d been first thing that morning (you’d never know she’d had major surgery).
Bekka and I discussed what might have happened (after she and Dr Stein had been discussing it). It could have been a vagal issue (the vagus nerve is in that area and they had to do a lot of pulling and pushing to get access to the part of the liver Dr Stein wanted to remove), it could have been some kind of transient delayed shock (losing half your liver a huge insult to the remaining liver), it could have been her spleen reacting to the whole thing. We don’t really know.
What I do know is that her PCV was up to 40 on Friday and she thinks cage rest is bullshit. She is strong, she is eating, she is taking her meds well, she tries to drag me around when I take her out into the back garden for potty walks on a lead. She is sleeping comfortably when she’s not angry about being in jail.
As best we understand it, dogs only really care about their quality of life, we’re the ones who care about quantity of life. But I have always believed that it’s well worth putting a dog through short term reduction in quality of life if there’s a reasonable chance for a return to a good or better quality and quantity of life. And selfishly, I’m just not ready to lose Nina, especially when she’s so full of life and joy. She’s sassy, she plays, she runs, she wrestles with the other dogs, she’s happy. Many people wouldn’t perform a major surgery on a dog of her age, but her lines tend to be very long-lived (well over 16 usually, and some 18 or even 19), and she’s lean, fit and very young for her age. I am fortunate that I work with some amazing and knowledgeable professionals, who have shepherded her through the first part of this with so much skill.
I love all my dogs but we say “but only Nina is Nina”. I have never had a dog like Nina and I probably never will again. The bond she and I have is something so precious and rare, she is my heart.
We don’t have the pathology results from the mass yet (it was big and smooth and pink), we don’t know what the future holds. But we do know that Nina is a tough cookie, and after all, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
Update June 13: Biopsy is back already: BENIGN adenoma with narrow clean margins. The best possible news!!!!
I have so many pictures and videos and things to post, the last couple of weeks have been crazy and I really have had to just neglect the blog in favor of work and getting the puppies home.
Unsurprisingly, I have some thoughts about the last couple of weeks here.
Choosing homes for puppies is one of the best and one of the worst things about breeding. Some breeders just let people choose a puppy and it’s all good. That works for them. That isn’t what works for me. The way I do things doesn’t work for everyone and that’s ok. I use an application, talk to people, and see if there’s a puppy who seems like a good fit once their personalities come out and once I’ve done their structural evaluations at 8 weeks. My obligation is to my puppies, and I hope people realize that I’m doing my best to find the best home for the puppy AND the right puppy for the owner. And that making a bad match does neither party any favors.
There was a lot of frantic, last minute running around this week and COVID makes everything more difficult (I mean, obviously most difficult for those who are sick or who’ve lost someone to the virus, but it’s amazing how many things you never even think about are harder because of it). And obviously the background level of stress and anxiety is so much higher, so it’s unsurprising that the usually-stressful time of sending the puppies out into the world to start their lives was even worse this time.
Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the homes for this litter. I always hope I did a good enough job raising them. Both parents are stellar dogs with great temperaments, the puppies all seem like great dogs. But you always worry. Will their owners love them as much as they deserve? Will they love them as much as we do? Will they kiss them on the nose the way that puppy loves? Will they play tug the way that THAT puppy loves? Will they talk to them in the stupid squeaky voice that makes their faces light up and their tails wag? Will they blow on that puppy’s face the way that makes her crazy happy? Will they realize what an amazing being they have to share their lives with now? Will they realize that they are about to become that dog’s whole world?
Letting go is hard. Packing up and putting away the puppy stuff is bittersweet. Going back to normal life is comforting. Planning the next litter is exciting.
I don’t know that people who haven’t raised a litter understand just how much work it is. It’s a labor of love for sure and it’s so gratifying and so fun. But it’s also work. SO much laundry, SO much poop, SO many days you just want to come home from a hard day at work and sit on the couch and veg out and you can’t. But so worth it to see them out there starting their lives and learning about their new people.
Red girl Alfa is now named Mimic and is living in Canada with her great aunt (Grandma Zhora’s sister). She will learn to play agility and probably already knows ten tricks.
Orange boy Bravo is now named Timber and is living in Canada with a lovely couple who are first time puppy/Vallhund owners and who did everything right from research to networking and were so excited to get him it makes me smile every time. It does your heart good.
Yellow girl Charlie is now named Valkyrie (Kyrie) and is living in Vermont with a lovely family who’ve had a Vallhund before. She will learn agility and will go kayaking!
Green boy Delta is now named Whiskey and is living in Canada in an experienced dog home. He will learn agility!
Blue boy Echo is now named Enzo and is co-owned by me and a lovely couple who are friends of mine. He will learn Barn Hunt and will hopefully be a show dog too!
Purple girl Foxtrot is now named Daisy and is living in beautiful Prince Edward Island where she will hopefully be a show dog and will definitely play on the beach!
Pink girl Golf is now named Jovie and is co-owned by me and a wonderful couple who also have Jovie’s great uncle (Zhora’s brother). She is their third Vallhund from me and if that’s not an enormous and humbling compliment I don’t know what is. She will learn agility, hopefully be a show dog, and will go some way towards healing hearts broken by the untimely loss of their oldest dog.
Have wonderful lives my D litter. We will miss you.
Here are the puppies “manding”, or sitting politely in order to ask for something (in this case, be picked up). This is not so much about training them to sit, but rather to teach them that they can communicate their needs (and “you give me something I want, I give you something you want”):