Margie took Martha to see Dr. Holcomb today. He performed an ultrasound to initially assess the number of puppies Martha might whelp. Its been 28 days since the breeding.
He counted at least five.
One issue for concern is Martha's loss of weight. Due to morning sickness, or hormones, or whatever, she is not taking kindly to eating. So we jazzed up her dinner this evening with canned food, and a hard boiled egg left over from Easter. She gobbled it up nicely.
We go back to the vet in two weeks for another assessment.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Saturday, March 8, 2008
The Breeding of Martha, Main Event
Feb 26, 2008
Fortunately, Minneapolis is directly north of Des Moines - up I-35.
Unfortunately, this has been a particularly active weather season. Much more snow and ice than in the past 15 years to my recollection. A storm-a-week. I was hoping I wouldn't have to drive in a winter storm when bringing Martha to Myles. While there was not an imminent storm, the weather was clearly sub-optimal.
You'd think the realtively flat farmland of northern Iowa and southern Minnesota would result in fairly uniform road conditions. But nooooo ! There is an infamous stretch of I-35, from just north of Story City, to just north of Mason City. There are gates at the entry ramps in this stretch of roadway, the only such gates on an Interstate highway in Iowa to my knowledge. It seems that the snow and ice and wind have a much greater effect on I-35 in this part that anywhere else, and that we know about it. And today was no different. I left Des Moines at 3-ish, and I-35 was dry, smooth, with not much traffic. But at the Devils Rectangle, all hell broke loose. Nowhere else on my trip did I observe any vehicle in the median or ditch, but between Story City and Mason City, I counted no less than 30 assorted vehicles that succumbed to the desires of the winter demon.
It came upon me quickly. Motoring casually at 75, I noticed about a mile ahead, the telegraphing of future danger - the flashing lights of safety vehicles intermixed with anxious brakelights. I took the van off criuse, and grabbed the steering wheel with both hands. I noticed the wind had picked up from the west, it was whipping snow across the asphalt, and as the vehicles drove over it, the snow would melt, and reincarnate as ICE. My speed dropped down to 30-ish, and I kept a half-dozen car interval. Every mile brought more destruction. Flipped over cars and SUVs, jack-knifed tractors, a tractor whose trailer top was ripped off like a sardine can, exposing a cargo of numerous small boxes. Still, future Darwin award winners sped by me as if it were normal driving conditions. It is interesting, that in this same general area, numerous wind energy farms have sprung up, like some new variety of perennial GMO corn. So there must be some weather anomaly in this location.
I stopped at Culver's in Mason City for a burger, and soon after, I-35 cleared up, and it again was smooth sailing, all the way in to Minneapolis. Up I-35, to I-35W, to I-494, then I-94 towards St. Cloud. Jeez, I didn't realize we'd almost be in St. Cloud. We were up there two years ago, for an obedience trial at the Civic Auditorium. Man it was cold. Did you know that the nickname for St. Cloud is Granite City. Did you know the restaurant of the same name has its home office in St. Cloud? Anyway, off at Monticello, and we're at Terri's place about 8:30 PM. A brief chat with Terri. I'm off, back to Des Moines, arriving back about 12:30 PM . No hair-raising incidents on the way back, but I did notice a few disabled vehicles that were not present on the drive up just a few hours earlier. I sing the praises of XM Radio for keeping me awake and alert.
Fortunately, Minneapolis is directly north of Des Moines - up I-35.
Unfortunately, this has been a particularly active weather season. Much more snow and ice than in the past 15 years to my recollection. A storm-a-week. I was hoping I wouldn't have to drive in a winter storm when bringing Martha to Myles. While there was not an imminent storm, the weather was clearly sub-optimal.
You'd think the realtively flat farmland of northern Iowa and southern Minnesota would result in fairly uniform road conditions. But nooooo ! There is an infamous stretch of I-35, from just north of Story City, to just north of Mason City. There are gates at the entry ramps in this stretch of roadway, the only such gates on an Interstate highway in Iowa to my knowledge. It seems that the snow and ice and wind have a much greater effect on I-35 in this part that anywhere else, and that we know about it. And today was no different. I left Des Moines at 3-ish, and I-35 was dry, smooth, with not much traffic. But at the Devils Rectangle, all hell broke loose. Nowhere else on my trip did I observe any vehicle in the median or ditch, but between Story City and Mason City, I counted no less than 30 assorted vehicles that succumbed to the desires of the winter demon.
It came upon me quickly. Motoring casually at 75, I noticed about a mile ahead, the telegraphing of future danger - the flashing lights of safety vehicles intermixed with anxious brakelights. I took the van off criuse, and grabbed the steering wheel with both hands. I noticed the wind had picked up from the west, it was whipping snow across the asphalt, and as the vehicles drove over it, the snow would melt, and reincarnate as ICE. My speed dropped down to 30-ish, and I kept a half-dozen car interval. Every mile brought more destruction. Flipped over cars and SUVs, jack-knifed tractors, a tractor whose trailer top was ripped off like a sardine can, exposing a cargo of numerous small boxes. Still, future Darwin award winners sped by me as if it were normal driving conditions. It is interesting, that in this same general area, numerous wind energy farms have sprung up, like some new variety of perennial GMO corn. So there must be some weather anomaly in this location.
I stopped at Culver's in Mason City for a burger, and soon after, I-35 cleared up, and it again was smooth sailing, all the way in to Minneapolis. Up I-35, to I-35W, to I-494, then I-94 towards St. Cloud. Jeez, I didn't realize we'd almost be in St. Cloud. We were up there two years ago, for an obedience trial at the Civic Auditorium. Man it was cold. Did you know that the nickname for St. Cloud is Granite City. Did you know the restaurant of the same name has its home office in St. Cloud? Anyway, off at Monticello, and we're at Terri's place about 8:30 PM. A brief chat with Terri. I'm off, back to Des Moines, arriving back about 12:30 PM . No hair-raising incidents on the way back, but I did notice a few disabled vehicles that were not present on the drive up just a few hours earlier. I sing the praises of XM Radio for keeping me awake and alert.
The Breeding of Martha, Prelude
It is pretty easy to tell when a female canine is in estrous.
Typically, we will draw blood and have a progesterone titer performed. We know it's getting close to ovulation because male dogs in the house start their courting routine, and we have to keep the boys and girls separated to prevent any unplanned breedings. Oh, the howling and the lack of all social skills can be amusing.
(Chart from LSU School of Veterinary Medicine)
Typically, we will draw blood and have a progesterone titer performed. We know it's getting close to ovulation because male dogs in the house start their courting routine, and we have to keep the boys and girls separated to prevent any unplanned breedings. Oh, the howling and the lack of all social skills can be amusing.
(Chart from LSU School of Veterinary Medicine)Anyway we noticed these signs in Martha about Feb 13. We observed some bloody discharge on this day. Our vet for canine reproductive matters, Dr Tom Holcomb, is our local theriogenologist. He also is on the AKC list of compliant veterinary practices for artificial insemination.
Anyway, Tom says a progesterone level of about 2.5 would indicate the time for breeding is indicated. So we started testing.
Tom has the bloodwork done at Antech Labs. From a level of 0.5 on Tuesday, Feb 19, it rose to 2.6 on Monday, Feb 25. So we called Terri in Minnesota, and advised her we were bringing Martha to her promptly for breeding to Kyle. Martha was ready to go.
Speaking of our vet, Tom Holcomb, here he is with our first puppy visit from Simon's litter in 2003. Tom has a way with animals. The Dallas County Conservation Department dept brings him injured and ill wildlfe, as do the genral public. Animals love him. He has such a calm, confident way. As he's drawing blood from Martha, she licks his face and ears so much he can't see what he's doing. Our dogs adore him.
Locating a Stud Dog
We've used dogs from Lemerle kennel the past couple of breedings. But Elaine has divested the kennel, and retired. So we began looking elsewhere for a suitable partner for Martha. We asked Terri Meyers for any leads, and she suggested a silver dog she was handling, BlackTie Myles To Go, from Black Tie Kennels.
We met Kyle at the Central Iowa Kennel Club show in mid-January at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. We found him to be quite complementary to Martha, and a very handsome and stately boy, with great poodle temperament.
So, after exchanging the appropriate testing results and documents, we and Kyle's owner reached an agreement to breed the two.
More about the testing in later posts.
We met Kyle at the Central Iowa Kennel Club show in mid-January at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. We found him to be quite complementary to Martha, and a very handsome and stately boy, with great poodle temperament.
So, after exchanging the appropriate testing results and documents, we and Kyle's owner reached an agreement to breed the two.
More about the testing in later posts.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Martha the Standard Poodle
Martha is Canterbury Tails A Good Thing.
"A Good Thing" is a phrase frequently used by Martha Stewart, thus the name for our little girl.
"A Good Thing" is a phrase frequently used by Martha Stewart, thus the name for our little girl.
Martha will be bred soon to produce our seventh litter of standard poodles since 1987.
We don't breed often. Managing a litter of quality dogs is a big job and it requires significant investment. Primarily, we use our dogs for obedience and performance training. Most go to pet homes, but a few are in performance homes. Since we consider conformational excellence a basis for performance, whenever we get that close-to-perfect dog, we will exhibit in the breed ring.
Martha's dam, Ripley, U-CD Canterbury Tails Blue Genes RN, has a Canadian Breed Championship.
And Martha's brother, Simon, Ch U-CD Canterbury Tails Notsosimple UDX RN, is an AKC Breed Champion.
This blog will document the current breeding and whelp with text and pictures.
More pictures of Martha are at
http://picasaweb.google.com/Ranchjp/Martha
More pictures of dogs from our kennel, Canterbury Tails, are at
http://picasaweb.google.com/Ranchjp/CanterburyTails
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