Things moved along quickly by the middle of the afternoon today. Advised by Shannon this AM that the owner finally signed the private surrender papers, so the dogs were now eligible to go into WSSCA Rescue and be placed. Yeah! Then, the boarding kennel found out Belza was confirmed pregnant and wanted her OUT TODAY! We were planning on a leisurely trip Thursday to retrieve all the dogs, but moved it up to Wednesday afternoon. Barb and Piper Smith met me in Bartonsville and we drove to Danville PA and got the dogs out, along with two bags of food, their medical records and a couple of blankets from their former owner.
As to the status of the dogs-Barb and I took one look at pregnant Belza and we both felt that she was pretty far into her pregnancy-probably more likely 8+ weeks. She is carrying the puppies low, so it looks like she's dropped already. Haven't even had a chance to feel for movement or get a temperature on her-I'd like her to settle and relax before I start sticking thermometers into her and poking and prodding... She's quiet, subdued, and I'm worried she could deliver at any time. We have no info on prior litters, maternal behavior, whelping history, etc. So it's a blank slate here.
While I was driving around PA, Rich was back home setting up crates in the basement for the three of them and also the whelping box in the puppy room for Belza, just in case. Shannon advised me this evening that Belza's breeder agreed to take her back if her condition would allow her to travel. I don't think it does at this point and in my opinion it would be very high risk to move her all the way to the Midwest unless someone picked her up tomorrow and had her in a new location by Friday at the latest. So we are formulating Plan B as we type this...We still need a committment from a breeder to take her or else we whelp her here...since I have to take care of getting the other two dogs placed and satisfy a request to do a stud service on a bitch in season, I'd really like someone else to whelp the litter. Any volunteers???? PLEASE????
Jasper and Katie seem fine-Rich has them loose in the basement trying to get them to chill out while I babysit our crew upstairs. They are so stressed right now they won't even take biscuits but they are drinking and they are quiet while they are out of their crates. Katie was noisy in the van on the way home for about half an hour and then fell asleep. She walks the crate across the floor and is somewhat barkey but we're cutting her some slack since she's obviously not in control of her situation. Jasper is quiet but displaying some 'lemme outta here' behavior in his crate. They both have the owners blankets in their crate-thought it would help if they could smell something familiar. They just need readjustment time, I think. Can't really make any evaluation of them now with them inside our home for less than 2 hours.
Awaiting responses from both foster/adopter families-they both indicated paperwork completion for Shannon is in progress, so I'm hopeful they will be off to their new homes before the weekend. I have the vet records and the dogs are all up to date on their vaccines, and while they are being fed substandard commercial food (really crappy, trust me...) they are in good shape physically and look like pet WSS should look. Ears need to be trimmed since they are all looking a bit English Springer-y, but I'm not really going to worry about that right now. I just want them to settle and NOT to have Belza have her puppies tonite!
Stay tuned for more as I try to get photos and make contact with the foster families...
As to the status of the dogs-Barb and I took one look at pregnant Belza and we both felt that she was pretty far into her pregnancy-probably more likely 8+ weeks. She is carrying the puppies low, so it looks like she's dropped already. Haven't even had a chance to feel for movement or get a temperature on her-I'd like her to settle and relax before I start sticking thermometers into her and poking and prodding... She's quiet, subdued, and I'm worried she could deliver at any time. We have no info on prior litters, maternal behavior, whelping history, etc. So it's a blank slate here.
While I was driving around PA, Rich was back home setting up crates in the basement for the three of them and also the whelping box in the puppy room for Belza, just in case. Shannon advised me this evening that Belza's breeder agreed to take her back if her condition would allow her to travel. I don't think it does at this point and in my opinion it would be very high risk to move her all the way to the Midwest unless someone picked her up tomorrow and had her in a new location by Friday at the latest. So we are formulating Plan B as we type this...We still need a committment from a breeder to take her or else we whelp her here...since I have to take care of getting the other two dogs placed and satisfy a request to do a stud service on a bitch in season, I'd really like someone else to whelp the litter. Any volunteers???? PLEASE????
Jasper and Katie seem fine-Rich has them loose in the basement trying to get them to chill out while I babysit our crew upstairs. They are so stressed right now they won't even take biscuits but they are drinking and they are quiet while they are out of their crates. Katie was noisy in the van on the way home for about half an hour and then fell asleep. She walks the crate across the floor and is somewhat barkey but we're cutting her some slack since she's obviously not in control of her situation. Jasper is quiet but displaying some 'lemme outta here' behavior in his crate. They both have the owners blankets in their crate-thought it would help if they could smell something familiar. They just need readjustment time, I think. Can't really make any evaluation of them now with them inside our home for less than 2 hours.
Awaiting responses from both foster/adopter families-they both indicated paperwork completion for Shannon is in progress, so I'm hopeful they will be off to their new homes before the weekend. I have the vet records and the dogs are all up to date on their vaccines, and while they are being fed substandard commercial food (really crappy, trust me...) they are in good shape physically and look like pet WSS should look. Ears need to be trimmed since they are all looking a bit English Springer-y, but I'm not really going to worry about that right now. I just want them to settle and NOT to have Belza have her puppies tonite!
Stay tuned for more as I try to get photos and make contact with the foster families...
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