Gaela sure has the baby belly these days, and is starting to lose the fur there as well, in preparation for nursing all those puppies. We don’t know how many she’ll have, choosing not to do ultrasound or x-rays. Call me paranoid, but I just don’t think it’s a good idea to zap baby brains with unnecessary radiation. If there was a problem, I’d do it, of course, but everything is going really well. She is starting to get really uncomfortable at this point. I sure remember the last part of pregnancy myself, when just moving takes so much effort. She did something to one of her legs overnight last night, probably landed wrong when jumping off our bed, so on top of everything else, she’s walking three-legged, poor poppet. I’m carrying her around. Mostly, she just wants to lay belly up and have me pet her.
I have the last tie on April 17th, so in my head, I’ve had June 17th as the due date. You know, plus or minus a few days. Gestation is usually 60ish days.
She’s pretty wide, so we could have a pretty big litter. Her mama had three litters — 7, 5, 7, and Gaela was part of the litter of 5. So who knows, right? Average litter size for the breed is 4. All we really care is that they are all healthy and happy, but I really can’t wait to see what we get!
This is Galdur, so sweet and handsome. His daddy is Tofi (who lives with us now), and his mama is Katina, who I think is just absolutely stunning. We should have some real lookers in this bunch, not that we don’t usually, but wow. I bet we get a wider variety than usual, though, with no common ancestors for ten generations back, pretty rare with this breed.
And then add in the excellent hip score for Gaela (thanks, Reike!), and we are definitely helping to improve the breed. Go, team!
Anyway, I’m really starting to get excited about meeting these babies. We’ve got lots of people asking to be put on the list for puppies. If you are thinking about it, let me know.