We Have Puppies!!

2010-01-20

Time to catch up. I hope I can remember everything since I last wrote.

Christmas was quiet and peaceful and good. We had Christmas with Rockhead's kids and grandkids the weekend before. Christmas Eve we had a delicious lunch and exchanged gifts with friends who are sisters...I have known them so long and been so close to them they are like my own sisters. Christmas Day I made a ham dinner, and G & W came over and we had a blast exchanging both nice and silly gifts, and played some killer card games. They have gotten a Wii. We have had a lot of fun Bowling and Golfing. I never would have believed how much I enjoy the golf game! We played Wii and drank on New Year's Eve. We didn't go home till after 3 AM, the alcohol was pretty much burned up by then.

Last Thursday, the 14th, Annie had five puppies. Oh my, I am so in love! If you are my facebook friend, you can go to my photos and see pictures. It was pretty much a textbook whelping, no problems at all. Annie just didn't look very big, and I would have guessed two, maybe three puppies. I had her x rayed a few days before so we knew how many to expect, and I was very surprised to see five little skulls on the film. Then I spent several days worrying they were too small or something was wrong....nope. They all came out very strong and normal. They weren't the biggest puppies we've ever had, but not tiny...all between ten and twelve ounces. We have two black females, one white female, one red female and a white male. M and I are so thrilled about all the girls, we should have at least one to carry on with from Annie, all we have from previous litters is Bronco. Annie is being a good mom and the puppies are growing like weeds, they have gained about a half pound each since Thursday night when they were born. The white male has two black ears, the white girl has no markings. I'm trying not to worry about them as BTs can be deaf, almost always the deaf ones are white. There is a test called a BAER test that is done when they are about six weeks old and it will tell us if they can hear in both ears, hear in one ear only, or bilaterally deaf. We don't breed deaf dogs or ones that are deaf in one ear. We have no DNA tests that can help us for this, so we have to rely on only breeding dogs with two normal ears.

Bullie moms can be clumsy and some of them are bad moms. So we never leave them alone for the first couple of weeks. I have my box set-up in the family room next to the sofa and I've been in there every night. I don't sleep well without medication and I can't take it now or I would be zonked if there was a problem. So I am getting very little sleep. I think I got an hour Sunday morning and that was it. This morning I dozed off between 7 and 7:30 AM and slept till 8:30 when a puppy screaming bloody murder woke me up. It was the red puppy, she was only a few inches from her mommy and couldn't find her so she was screeching. I did fall back asleep sometime after that and didn't wake up until 12:30!! I have felt pretty darn good all day. Here it is 2:30 AM and I am still going strong. I guess no sleep for the wicked.

Tuesday was my birthday. I had several phone calls wishing me a happy birthday, some emails, and TONS of Happy Birthdays from FB friends! It really did make my day, having that many people taking their time for me. My lovely puppy babies were an early present, what more could I possibly want?? And Rockhead got me a funny musical card. He is not one to do things like that much, so it tickled me to pieces. It has a chicken on the front and chicken tracks all over it. It plays the Chicken Dance and says something about me having an Accordionly good birthday. LOL! I made myself some Chicken Gnocchi soup (DELICIOUS!) and a banana pudding so I feel like I had a good birthday! Oh, and my friends the sisters are going to take me out Sunday for breakfast.

I do have a very sad part of my life going on. My older sister is sick with Graves' disease. (extremely overactive thyroid) She quit eating and is very ill. She has been in the hospital for some time, and had to be moved to a nursing home. She has a feeding tube in. Surgery to remove her thyroid is due to be this Thursday...I so hope it will work. She is three states away from me, and with the litter I just can't get up and leave here yet. My brother in law has his hands full and only gives sporadic updates by email. I did finally manage to get him on the phone last week to talk to him. My younger sister had to have her thyroid removed at age 17 because it was so overactive. Her surgeon left some of it in because she was so young, and he did a good job. It's been many years and she has enough of the thyroid hormones. She even had a baby. Younger sis says she cannot even describe how terrible mentally this disease is, what it does to your mind. To this day she has never learned to drive a car. Her illness was unknown to us at the time she was learning to drive and it was such a terrible experience she still has never learned. The two of us are going to go see Older sis as soon as I get this litter of pups grown enough to place some of them. I hope by the time I write here again I have better news. I love her so much, she is eight years older than me, but never treated me like a pesky younger sister. She is actually my half sister so didn't live with us (my dad's daughter) and her visits were huge treats for me, she would bring me good toys and play with me. We've always been very close. Our birthdays are only 3 days apart, hers was last Saturday.

Sleeping - Crowing