Litter News
Covid has a catalyst for people looking to add a Collie to their home. People are obviously at home more, so it has been in some ways a great time to add a new addition. Some breeders have been leery about having litters during this time for a couple of reasons, first and foremost of course are people coming into our homes to meet the dogs, and secondly as we are concerned that the pet may not be as important when the world returns to "normal" and people head back to offices and their busy lives. There has also been issues with getting the dogs into the vets for puppy eye checks and vet checks, as no reputable breeder wants to place a dog without these important steps. If you've had trouble finding a puppy lately, these are some of the reasons.
A question that we've been asked a lot lately is why we don't keep a "waiting list". Mother Nature is a fickle friend, and there are never any guarantees when dealing with dogs. The last litter we had planned went like this - three weeks after being bred, we took our girl to the vets for her ultrasound and were over the moon to see four to five babies in there. However, at 60 days post breeding we took her for an X-ray (which we do to know just how many exactly we are expecting) and were devastated to see that she had reabsorbed all the pups but one, and that little one had a slow heart beat. So, a c-section was scheduled and we had one exceptionally tiny blue girl. We slept in the box around the clock with her and her mom but despite our best efforts, she didn't live past day 3. We were understandably devastated. The litter we had previous to this contained only two, and we kept them both as ultimately, we breed for ourselves. When I was 14 and my parents finally said I was allowed to buy a purebred collie, I experienced that devastation three times - each waiting list I was on would come back and tell me something went wrong, and there would be no puppy coming to me. I never, ever want young people to feel that sadness, and feel it just isn't fair to have a list, get people's hopes up, and then have them dashed. When we have a litter on the ground, we post it here. When a breeder has a litter out of one of our girls, or sired by one of our dogs, we post it here.
We are hoping to have a litter or two next year and we'll keep you posted. Thanks for checking, and thanks for listening.
Nancy & Bob
The Care And Feeding of Breeders
The dog breeder is, well, an odd breed. I doubt there is anyone else out there who does something simply for the love of it, regardless of the heartache, financial strain, massive time commitment, and sheer exhaustion. So why do we do it? Many, many reasons. First and foremost are the love of the dogs themselves. No one else loves as unconditionally as our dogs. No one else allows us to hold them close whenever WE feel like, to cry on their shoulder, to talk over our problems. No one else in our lives listens as we sing off key without laughing, never ever tells us not to have that dessert, tells us our hair cut looks like something out of the seventies, or that, inevitably, our butt looks big. They are our companions, our friends the source of our smiles and invariably make us feel good at all times. Then there is the magic, the thrill, the wonderment of creating a beautiful dog. We study dogs from all over the world, we study pedigrees of thousands of dogs. We create, in our minds, the perfect dog that best brings our breed standard to life, then set out to create that same dog in life. We go into this knowing that we will never, ever succeed! Yet still we do it. We come close, and it thrills us. We exhibit that dog to judges and other breeders we respect and admire, and when they agree with out vision, it is the highest of highs. Having that beautiful creation pointed to for a major specialty win, a Best Puppy in Show, a Best in Show, or even its first points gives us what we need to go on. A rush. A thrill. We unabashedly admit to being adrenaline junkies that are addicted to the rush the wins give us. One the other hand, we are ridiculously proud of the puppies we produce that never see the show ring, for they too have a piece of our hearts.
Getting to that point, however, is hell. Every single successful dog breeder has a myriad of horror stories, that would make lesser people curl up in a fetal position and just give up. Staying up for 48 hours with a hysterical bitch, only to end up having to c-section her in the middle of the night (the only time emergency c-sections happen is when it costs the most..), to end up with three beautiful, but dead puppies. Having your bitch whelp, only to lose the puppy within 24 hours, and to watch, heartbroken, as your beloved bitch searches frantically for her puppy, inconsolable. Losing a bitch after whelping, and being the sole provider for those little puppies who are now totally dependent on you. Feeding and cleaning and loving them around the clock for days on end, sleep deprived, only to lose some at two weeks. Going off to eye checks with one of the most beautiful puppies you have ever bred, only to go home without him due to bad eyes. Losing a puppy, inexplicably, at ten weeks. And, getting a call from the pathologist later saying wow, I've never seen anything like THIS. Having your most beautiful and beloved bitch die in your arms due to toxic shock. Treating a special, multi BIS bitch for pyometra only to have her almost die and need an emergency spay. Having an entire litter born dead. Holding that puppy as it takes it last breath. Realizing that at the end of the year, we have paid more to our vets than we did to our mortgages. The heartaches never stop in this game of ours.
And then, we have the puppy buyers. We can't keep all our puppies, and not all are worth keeping to a breeder. For these puppies we strive to find loving, forever homes for. Often these pups are not up to the caliber of dog we are searching for. Reasons are many, including ears not being what they should, eyes not quite as pretty, eye checks not up to par, temperment not what a show dog needs, or simply just lacking that star quality. So, we invite strangers into our lives and homes to meet the dogs, to talk to them and their kids, to get a feel for the family and to try to deduce if they will make a great home for one of our kids. We are all not psychic, so we don't always succeed. By the time potential buyers come to see the puppies, the breeder has spent hundreds of hours with each puppy from the puppy being born into our hands, to daily handling, cleaning the box, and cleaning the box, and cleaning the box, introducing the pup to the grooming table, having his little nails done, ears up in tapes, being brushed, being cuddled, loved, held, running around the house, chasing cats, being growled at by bigger dogs, learning to eat, learning to go up and down stairs, having that first traumatic bath and blow dry, being tattooed or microchipped, going for a car ride, having an eye check, being observed, photographed, touched, watched, loved and adored. By ten weeks, these are not just puppies to us, they are hundreds of hours of our time, love and energy. The pet buyers come up and see a happy, well adjusted puppy galloping through the house, loving his belly being rubbed and wagging his tail at everything. Some then plunk down $600, look at some paperwork and take their new puppy home, thinking boy, that breeder is just making out like a bandit! Then, they call within a couple of days to complain that the puppy cried all night. The puppy chewed something. The puppy nibbled on a person. The puppy isn't housebroken yet. The puppy was frightened by something strange. A few months go by, and then the calls start again, as the puppy is now five months old, gawky, prick eared, no coat and goofy absolutely in the throes of teenager-hood. The puppy chewed a tree in the yard. The puppy jumped on a neighbours kid. The puppy barks when left alone in the back yard. The puppy has some demodex on his face. The puppy had diarrhea all over the rug. The puppy walks funny. You didn't sell us a healthy dog.
When breeders decide on a breeding, believe me, it is not done lightly. Usually breeding decisions begin when the dam to be is BORN, we are already considering her pedigree and her potential strengths and weaknesses and thinking of which direction to take with her, providing she does turn out. We breed the healthiest dogs to healthy dogs, delving into the pedigrees and the owners to find out potential problems, such as skin problems, seizures, hip problems, temperment, and anything else we can think of. We also breed the most beautiful dog to the dog who best compliments it, as ultimately a stunningly beautiful dog who isn't healthy doesn't do us any good, just as a dog with superior health clearances who is ugly doesn't do us any good. We cross our fingers and hope for the best, based on the research we have done. If we could look into our crystal balls and foresee the future our jobs would be much easier, but even though we say that we have never run into this problem before, the odds are that we will, at some point. The worst phone call a breeder can get is the puppy you sold us has bad hips, or is seizuring, or has lupus, or something along these lines. As disheartening a health problem may be to the pet owner, the dog is already probably spayed or neutered at this point, the problem stays with him, and generally can live a long and happy life with his family with proper care and perhaps medication. It is not the end of the world. For the breeder, however, it is the most devastating news. It implicates the sire, the dam, the dams dam, the littermates, in short, YEARS of the breeders work. After crying bitterly and sinking into a depression, they have to have the fortitude to get back up and begin an expensive and heart breaking process of identifying the carriers of the problem, and slowly, slowly attempt to clear their family of dogs. Many great dogs will have to be removed from the breeding program, many difficult, heart breaking decisions have to be made. There is no breeder around who has not hit this wall if they haven't they will at some point in their careers. It is the odds we live with.
The breeder faces huge guilt, grief and remorse when they unknowingly sell a dog who ultimately turns out to be not healthy. Should this happen, we are thrilled when our crystal ball was right, and the puppy is with a wonderful family who will face the problems the dog has and continue to love him for the rest of his life. When our crystal ball is wrong, however, it is a different story. The buyers who want to dump the dog, after having it for four months or four years, back at the breeders are those who make us shake our heads and try to figure out just where we went wrong, and why we sold them that dog in the first place. We look around our kennel and realize that over half of our dogs are spayed, retired veterans that we couldn't bring ourselves to place. We wonder why we have so many dogs then remember the adorable puppy that was returned after she chewed up a couch, after being left alone all day, and just somehow stayed. And, we can't imagine the people who willingly dump a puppy due to a small medical or behavioural problem. We begin to not trust our feelings and impressions, becoming cynical and unwilling to help.
Our dogs are, rightly or wrongly, a huge part of our lives. We give them our love, our time, our energy, and a slice of our hearts. What we want from buyers is a kind word about the puppy, a phone call or email once in a while to tell us something cute the dog is doing, a note to let us know the dog is loved and will be loved for life. We want a full, lifetime commitment to the dog, whether you took it home at ten weeks of age or at ten years of age. We want you to let us know about any health problems, and to listen to us and let us help you through them, should they arise. We want you to say this is the most beautiful dog I have ever owned and I can't imagine what our life would be like without him/her. That is, for a breeder, as big a rush as winning that Best In Show.
The dog breeder is, well, an odd breed. I doubt there is anyone else out there who does something simply for the love of it, regardless of the heartache, financial strain, massive time commitment, and sheer exhaustion. So why do we do it? Many, many reasons. First and foremost are the love of the dogs themselves. No one else loves as unconditionally as our dogs. No one else allows us to hold them close whenever WE feel like, to cry on their shoulder, to talk over our problems. No one else in our lives listens as we sing off key without laughing, never ever tells us not to have that dessert, tells us our hair cut looks like something out of the seventies, or that, inevitably, our butt looks big. They are our companions, our friends the source of our smiles and invariably make us feel good at all times. Then there is the magic, the thrill, the wonderment of creating a beautiful dog. We study dogs from all over the world, we study pedigrees of thousands of dogs. We create, in our minds, the perfect dog that best brings our breed standard to life, then set out to create that same dog in life. We go into this knowing that we will never, ever succeed! Yet still we do it. We come close, and it thrills us. We exhibit that dog to judges and other breeders we respect and admire, and when they agree with out vision, it is the highest of highs. Having that beautiful creation pointed to for a major specialty win, a Best Puppy in Show, a Best in Show, or even its first points gives us what we need to go on. A rush. A thrill. We unabashedly admit to being adrenaline junkies that are addicted to the rush the wins give us. One the other hand, we are ridiculously proud of the puppies we produce that never see the show ring, for they too have a piece of our hearts.
Getting to that point, however, is hell. Every single successful dog breeder has a myriad of horror stories, that would make lesser people curl up in a fetal position and just give up. Staying up for 48 hours with a hysterical bitch, only to end up having to c-section her in the middle of the night (the only time emergency c-sections happen is when it costs the most..), to end up with three beautiful, but dead puppies. Having your bitch whelp, only to lose the puppy within 24 hours, and to watch, heartbroken, as your beloved bitch searches frantically for her puppy, inconsolable. Losing a bitch after whelping, and being the sole provider for those little puppies who are now totally dependent on you. Feeding and cleaning and loving them around the clock for days on end, sleep deprived, only to lose some at two weeks. Going off to eye checks with one of the most beautiful puppies you have ever bred, only to go home without him due to bad eyes. Losing a puppy, inexplicably, at ten weeks. And, getting a call from the pathologist later saying wow, I've never seen anything like THIS. Having your most beautiful and beloved bitch die in your arms due to toxic shock. Treating a special, multi BIS bitch for pyometra only to have her almost die and need an emergency spay. Having an entire litter born dead. Holding that puppy as it takes it last breath. Realizing that at the end of the year, we have paid more to our vets than we did to our mortgages. The heartaches never stop in this game of ours.
And then, we have the puppy buyers. We can't keep all our puppies, and not all are worth keeping to a breeder. For these puppies we strive to find loving, forever homes for. Often these pups are not up to the caliber of dog we are searching for. Reasons are many, including ears not being what they should, eyes not quite as pretty, eye checks not up to par, temperment not what a show dog needs, or simply just lacking that star quality. So, we invite strangers into our lives and homes to meet the dogs, to talk to them and their kids, to get a feel for the family and to try to deduce if they will make a great home for one of our kids. We are all not psychic, so we don't always succeed. By the time potential buyers come to see the puppies, the breeder has spent hundreds of hours with each puppy from the puppy being born into our hands, to daily handling, cleaning the box, and cleaning the box, and cleaning the box, introducing the pup to the grooming table, having his little nails done, ears up in tapes, being brushed, being cuddled, loved, held, running around the house, chasing cats, being growled at by bigger dogs, learning to eat, learning to go up and down stairs, having that first traumatic bath and blow dry, being tattooed or microchipped, going for a car ride, having an eye check, being observed, photographed, touched, watched, loved and adored. By ten weeks, these are not just puppies to us, they are hundreds of hours of our time, love and energy. The pet buyers come up and see a happy, well adjusted puppy galloping through the house, loving his belly being rubbed and wagging his tail at everything. Some then plunk down $600, look at some paperwork and take their new puppy home, thinking boy, that breeder is just making out like a bandit! Then, they call within a couple of days to complain that the puppy cried all night. The puppy chewed something. The puppy nibbled on a person. The puppy isn't housebroken yet. The puppy was frightened by something strange. A few months go by, and then the calls start again, as the puppy is now five months old, gawky, prick eared, no coat and goofy absolutely in the throes of teenager-hood. The puppy chewed a tree in the yard. The puppy jumped on a neighbours kid. The puppy barks when left alone in the back yard. The puppy has some demodex on his face. The puppy had diarrhea all over the rug. The puppy walks funny. You didn't sell us a healthy dog.
When breeders decide on a breeding, believe me, it is not done lightly. Usually breeding decisions begin when the dam to be is BORN, we are already considering her pedigree and her potential strengths and weaknesses and thinking of which direction to take with her, providing she does turn out. We breed the healthiest dogs to healthy dogs, delving into the pedigrees and the owners to find out potential problems, such as skin problems, seizures, hip problems, temperment, and anything else we can think of. We also breed the most beautiful dog to the dog who best compliments it, as ultimately a stunningly beautiful dog who isn't healthy doesn't do us any good, just as a dog with superior health clearances who is ugly doesn't do us any good. We cross our fingers and hope for the best, based on the research we have done. If we could look into our crystal balls and foresee the future our jobs would be much easier, but even though we say that we have never run into this problem before, the odds are that we will, at some point. The worst phone call a breeder can get is the puppy you sold us has bad hips, or is seizuring, or has lupus, or something along these lines. As disheartening a health problem may be to the pet owner, the dog is already probably spayed or neutered at this point, the problem stays with him, and generally can live a long and happy life with his family with proper care and perhaps medication. It is not the end of the world. For the breeder, however, it is the most devastating news. It implicates the sire, the dam, the dams dam, the littermates, in short, YEARS of the breeders work. After crying bitterly and sinking into a depression, they have to have the fortitude to get back up and begin an expensive and heart breaking process of identifying the carriers of the problem, and slowly, slowly attempt to clear their family of dogs. Many great dogs will have to be removed from the breeding program, many difficult, heart breaking decisions have to be made. There is no breeder around who has not hit this wall if they haven't they will at some point in their careers. It is the odds we live with.
The breeder faces huge guilt, grief and remorse when they unknowingly sell a dog who ultimately turns out to be not healthy. Should this happen, we are thrilled when our crystal ball was right, and the puppy is with a wonderful family who will face the problems the dog has and continue to love him for the rest of his life. When our crystal ball is wrong, however, it is a different story. The buyers who want to dump the dog, after having it for four months or four years, back at the breeders are those who make us shake our heads and try to figure out just where we went wrong, and why we sold them that dog in the first place. We look around our kennel and realize that over half of our dogs are spayed, retired veterans that we couldn't bring ourselves to place. We wonder why we have so many dogs then remember the adorable puppy that was returned after she chewed up a couch, after being left alone all day, and just somehow stayed. And, we can't imagine the people who willingly dump a puppy due to a small medical or behavioural problem. We begin to not trust our feelings and impressions, becoming cynical and unwilling to help.
Our dogs are, rightly or wrongly, a huge part of our lives. We give them our love, our time, our energy, and a slice of our hearts. What we want from buyers is a kind word about the puppy, a phone call or email once in a while to tell us something cute the dog is doing, a note to let us know the dog is loved and will be loved for life. We want a full, lifetime commitment to the dog, whether you took it home at ten weeks of age or at ten years of age. We want you to let us know about any health problems, and to listen to us and let us help you through them, should they arise. We want you to say this is the most beautiful dog I have ever owned and I can't imagine what our life would be like without him/her. That is, for a breeder, as big a rush as winning that Best In Show.
