Doodle Doings

The First Family announced recently that the First Dog would be a Portuguese Water dog.  I have mixed feelings about this on a number of levels.

As a Labradoodle breeder, I am actually somewhat relieved that the First Dog will not be a doodle.  There are already bunches of people who have jumped on the ‘Designer Dog’ bandwagon in the last few years, hoping to charge big bucks for the dogs and supplement their income.  Little do they know how really expensive it is to breed responsibly, and how emotionally demanding.  Had the Obama’s chosen to get a Labradoodle, I am sure it would have resulted in an even larger production of poorly bred Labradoodles.

Had the choice for First Dog been a Labradoodle, I believe there would have been a great deal more pressure on the Obamas to adopt a dog from rescue. Because of all those folks jumping on the bandwagon mentioned above, there are a fair number of Labradoodles in rescue.  Most of the Labradoodles in rescue are first generation Labradoodles and therefore not allergy-friendly, so they would not be an appropriate choice for the Obamas anyway.  And like any other family with young children, the First Family needs to be extremely careful to adopt a dog with a known background in order to insure the dog is good with the kids.  This is very challenging to accomplish when choosing a dog from rescue.  But because of the availability of Labradoodles in rescue, there was pressure on the Obamas to rescue one.  It is politically much more acceptable for the Obamas to get a Portuguese Water Dog (PWD) from a breeder than to get a Labradoodle from a breeder, because of the lack of PWD available in rescue.

So even while I understand that the choice of a PWD was politically easier, and probably better for the Labradoodle community, I do feel it would have been better for the First Family to choose a Labradoodle.

Well-bred Labradoodles are bred to be family pets.  There is no higher priority for a Labradoodle breeder than to produce dogs of good temperament.  PWD breeders, on the other hand, have other considerations when they breed; they breed for the show ring, and breed towards a standard of conformation and appearance.  PWD can be stubborn, and no attempt is really made to selectively breed away from this as eliminating that trait is not the first goal of PWD breeders.  Labradoodle breeders, without the pressures of breeding for a breed standard and the show ring, can concentrate on breeding the best, most trainable, companion.  It is what we do best.  I think a Labradoodle would have been a better choice for First Dog.

in Reese’s belly! Yep, I can sit here and see ripples just underneath the skin, puppies kicking and wiggling . I love that!

Reese is my F1B Goldendoodle that is expecting her first litter 3/7. Just as with people, due dates in dogs are an estimate. The actual time that it is safe for a dog to deliver puppies is about 5 or so days on either side of the due date, so Reese could actually deliver any time.

Reese’s litter is a first in several ways. It is her first litter, as I mentioned above. It is also the first litter that resulted from a semen collection and insemination that I performed myself. As with any other set of skills, there is a learning curve, and I have tried collection and insemination two other times previously and the attempts did not result in pregnancies. So I am pretty excited that I got it right!

Only a small number of breeders utilize the technology available for artificial insemination (AI), and even fewer attempt it themselves, leaving those tasks to their reproductive veterinarian. In my mind, the advent of AI for canines ranks up there with the invention of sliced bread. Being able to use AI allows a breeder to consider studs that might otherwise be too small for the female, or that reside anywhere at all, as opposed to only those locally available. The chances of success in locating just the right match (in terms of coat, conformation, personality, etc) for a female skyrocket the more choices that are available. The opportunities for adding genetic diversity to lines are as wide as the world. In Reese’s case, the boy was just too short to be able to reach her, so AI was the only option.

The whole process of artificial insemination is not for the faint of heart, or the easily embarrassed, however. The broad outline of the process is probably pretty much as you imagine it to be. Semen is collected from the male, and placed into the female. Done deal, right?

Those of you who want to leave only those images in your head should close your browser window now, because the images that replace them will not be so simple.

Some males are easier to collect from than others, but in any case it involves using a plastic sleeve to collect the semen. Managing to control an excited boy enough to direct the semen into the sleeve without ruining his excitement is a real trick. And the process is longer than you might imagine. I remember reading an article about canine semen collection that said that just about the time you lost all feeling in your legs from crouching is when you will find success. They were wrong. The feeling had long left my legs by the time the collection was done, and that was only the first step. And this was not the kind of process for which one wants an audience either. Once when my vet was collecting from a boy we both looked up as a shadow passed by the glass part of the examining room door, both of us realizing at the exact same moment that if we could see into the lobby, from the right angle, people in the lobby could see into the examining room. There was a pause, and the vet said, “We really need blinds on that door. If my kids actually knew what I did for a living they would disown me.’”

After collection the semen is placed into a syringe attached to a long tube, and the tube is inserted into the female. The semen is deposited and the tube removed. Again, done deal, right? Wrong.

When dogs breed naturally they remained connected to each other, called a ‘tie’, for anywhere for 15 to 60 minutes. The tie causes contractions in the females reproductive tract that draw the semen into the uterus, and the length of the tie also insures that the semen has lots of opportunity to get pulled into the cervix before any leaks out.

During AI, of course, there is no tie. To simulate this the breeder, or vet, inserts a finger and pushes on the upper wall of the vagina to stimulate contractions in the female, a proces called ‘feathering’. The breeder then elevates the female’s hindquarters for at least 15 minutes, to avoid semen leakage for the bare minimum amount of time similar to a tie. So with no feeling in my legs, I was faced with just about the longest 15 minutes of my life, trying to keep Reese’s butt in the air. She thought this was great fun, and spent the whole time trying to swing around to lick my face. It was like wrestling an octopus. We did this 4 times durin one week to achieve this pregnancy. AND IT WORKED! I could see puppies rockin’ and rollin’ in her belly. Happy Days.

One of the four day old mini F1B Goldendoodlepuppies died today, a big healthy boy. They have all been doing really well, active and gaining weight. I checked them at about 6 AM, and let Rouge out and fed her. I went back a couple hours later and one of the pups was dead, just laying on his side with his mouth open. I think Rouge must have rolled over on him. She is a big girl at about 57 lbs with her ‘nursing weight’, and she would not have to lay on a pup for long for it to suffocate. The whelping pen has ‘pig rails’ installed…..foam noodles attached to the walls about 5 inches up from the bottom….that help keep this from happening more often. The rails mean mom can’t lean all the way up against the wall of the whelping pen, there is always a gap between her and the wall so a pup has a chance to wriggle back there and get out of the way. I can’t tell you how many times I have fished a pup out from behind a mom. But today it did not make a difference.

The saddest thing is that Rouge knows he is gone. I put him up on some towels on a shelf in the other room, intending to bury him later. I went back in to the whelping area an hour later, and all the towels were off the shelf and the puppy was gone. He was back with the other puppies in the whelping pen. Poor Rouge. I let her see him one more time and took him away.

This one was dated 2/26/09.

I love whelping puppies! I always get ‘pre-whelping jitters’, but once things get going I settle in. This time around I was not quite as nervious as I sometimes am, as Rouge is an experienced mom.

I have been taking Rouge’s temperature 3 times a day for almost a week now, waiting for it to go below 99 F and stay there. That means pups are likely to make their appearance within 12-24 hours. Her temperature was 98.6 yesterday (Wednesday 2/25) AM, so I was flitting in and out of the puppy area all day, really unable to concentrate on anything else! I was scheduled to take a Koryo Gundo workshop on Wednesday night, but I skipped it to sleep for an hour from 7-8 PM because I was pretty sure I was going to be up all night. A nap and two espressos and I was all ready!

Rouge never did do the usual panting-pacing-digging-at-the-bedding thing. I have a computer in the whelping room, and I was playing Scrabble online, looking up at Rouge in time to see what I could swear was the tail end of a contraction! WHAT? She was cool as a cucumber, not even breathing hard. I went back to playing Scrabble, but was sliding my gaze over to her every minute now. Yep, there was another one. How about that.

A few minutes later the first pup, made his appearance, 10:30 PM. I just love this. The puppy came out in his sac, attached to the placenta. I removed the sac and rubbed him down with a small square of terry cloth, he responded with a little gurgly squeak. I cut the cord and ‘slung’ him to get fluid out of his nostrils. This consists of placing the pup in the cloth, between my hands, puppy’s butt in my palms and the head stabilized by my fingers. I lean over so my torso is about parallel to the floor, and swing my arms in an arc, from right in front of me to back between my legs, repeating several times. The centrifugal force brings the fluid out of their nostrils in a much more gentle way than suctioning them with a bulb syringe. I placed him at a teat and he nursed immediately. Rouge began licking and cleaning him. All was right with the world.

Another followed at 11:30, another at 1AM. Then a VERY long wait. I was just getting worried when pup number 4 arrived at 4 AM, then another 3 between4AM and 6:30. All birthed easily, and began breathing as soon as I rubbed them with a towel, and all got the hang of nursing within seconds. I checked everyone over for birth defects. Cleft palates are not uncommon, and once I had 3 puppies born without anuses, so now I always check for that too. Everyone was healthy and Rouge was doing great. I could feel a lump in her belly, I wasn’t sure if there was another puppy in there. Two of the puppies were born without their placentas, and I wasn’t sure if the placentas were still in there, or if they had come out and Rouge had eaten them without me seeing. I couldn’t hear a a puppy heartbeat, but that is never a sure thing anyway because the puppy has to be in just the right position to catch a heartbeat with a stethescope. So I was kind of worried, but could only wait and watch.

6:30 AM saw what looked like the end of the whelping, but the beginning of my usual Thursday! I awoke the kids up at 7AM and got everyone ready for the day. Shane, my 13 year old, was happy, I was too tired to pack him a lunch so I gave him $2 to buy lunch at school. I usually have a sparring class on Thursday AM, but I made the amazingly responsible decision to skip it. I almost went, but when I was driving back from dropping Shane at the bus stop I found I was having trouble attending to traffic. I decided if I couldn’t keep track of cars when driving, getting in a ring with someone kicking at my head was probably not a great idea either.

Gus, my 9 year old that I homeschool, was also pretty happpy. It was a low-key day for him for school, and we spent the morning doing his work in the puppy area so we could easily keep track of how things were going with Rouge and the pups. I went to my office and worked with one client for an hour (I am also a massage therapist). Back home to check on our new little family. I will continue to track Rouge’s temperature 3-4 times a day to make sure she is not developing an infection. Pyometra, a deadly uterine infection, can develop rapidly and without any symptoms except a fever until it is too late.

So here it is Thursday night, everyone is doing well and I really need some sleep! I have a loft bed I built up above the whelping box so I can catch a few winks but still hear if mom or pups need me.

Rouge's mini Goldendoodle puppies at birth

And this was dated 2/20/09:

Rouge’s guardian Heather dropped her off today. Rouge is due 3/1 with mini FiB Goldendoodle pups, and normally she gets here just about a week before she is due. But Heather has a tennis tournament out of town, and neither of us was comfortable with anyone else being responsible for her so close to her due date.

Rouge is HUGE. It is hard to tell if there are really that many pups in there, or if she is just hanging kind of low because she has had 3 litters previously. I hope it is the latter. Her last litter was nine puppies, and that was just too much. Actually, Rouge was fine with it, it was I who was stressed. 6-8 would be perfect.

The last two weeks have been spent cleaning and painting the puppy areas, buying supplies and generally ramping up. We had half of our detached garage converted unto ‘Puppyland’ a few years ago. Puppyland consists of a small hallway with shelving and storage containers, and two room , one off each side of the hallway.each side. So I have room to care for two litters. There is wireless access and an espresso maker I got for $10 at the thrift store, so I am all set!

My name is Helene and I started Westwood Labradoodles, Goldendoodles, and North American  Retrievers (aka WLDGD) in 2003.  Although I have been breeding Doodles for about 6 years, I began breeding Labradors many, many years ago.  I whelped my first litter when I was 16. 

One of the goals I had when starting my Doodle breeding program was to donate allergy-friendly puppies to be trained as service dogs. There is a huge need for this, as the vast majority of breeds that commonly are used for service (Retrievers and Shepherds) are very allergenic. A Poodles is very occasionally found to have an appropriate personality, but in general they are just too independent! When the parents are chosen well, and the puppies are raised well, Doodles can have the right combination of personality traits and low-allergy coat to fill this need. So far I have donated seven dogs so be trained for service; some information about that is here:

http://westwoodlabradoodles.com/WestwoodLabradoodlesServiceDogs.html

One of the highest compliments is that three of the organizations have asked for second donations. It is expensive and time-consuming to train service dogs, and I know I am doing a good job if the organizations feel confident that the puppies they get from me will make the grade. Providing family companions and service dogs makes me feel I am making a positive contribution to the lives of those around me.

I am also a student of the martial arts, and strive to apply the tenets and values of martial arts to my life every day.

Here are the Five Tenets of Tae Kwon-Do, and how I try to apply them to life at Westwood Labradoodles.

Courtesy – I will treat every person who contacts me with courtesy, and strive to answer questions and provide information to the best of my ability.

Integrity – I will treat everyone fairly, and strive to do what is right, no matter how difficult it may be.

Perseverance - I will persist despite challenges, until the best outcome possible for everyone is obtained.

Self-control - I will develop self-discipline in order to bring out the best in myself and others.

Indomitable will – Every event, even those that seem negative, will be seen as an opportunity.

A-SAH!