...I could use more of.
Rumor is fine, temp is normal, appetite is great, sleeping and going for walks and looks for all the world like nothing is amiss.
So no panic is allowed. More patience is required.
To keep myself from going nuts-o I made a graph of her temperature over the last week:
The blue line is a.m., the red line is mid-afternoon, and the green line is evening. (Thanks to Elissa for helping me set this up.) As you can see, the red line shows a semi-significant drop from yesterday... which was higher than Thursday, so could easily be completely meaningless. Ru's temp is generally below 100 anyway, so IF there's going to be a big drop before labor starts, it will be in the low-to-mid 98's. Not even close to that at this time.
She does really want me to be with her, however, so I've spent today doing things on the computer (the whelping box and computer both being in the study). She carefully supervised my making changes to the club website (premiums needing posting, photos needed updating), and pretty much lost interest by the time I started ripping CD's to put on my iPod.
I went through our collection and pulled all the female soloist CDs that I didn't already have on the iPod; copied and downloaded: Patsy Cline, Ella Fitzgerald, Alanis Morissette, Jewel, Sarah McLaughlin, Tina Turner, etc.... (yes, of course the CD's are in alphabetical order. how else would one possibly arrange them??) Then I did all the soundtracks: Big Chill, Forrest Gump, Evita, Phantom, Le Miz, etc.. I already did all the Operas (Don G, Figaro, Fideleo, etc.) and most of the classical (I am a huge fan of violin concerti), so what's next will be male solo artists, followed by bands.
Then I'll have to go buy more CD's to rip, because I'll go insane if I don't have something to do and Rumor gets up to follow me every time I leave the chair. Which is very flattering but sweetie you'll just have to trust me on this, I'm not that fascinating. Really. It's a miracle I got in the shower without her going in, too.
Our daily walk/trot around the pasture was business-as-usual, too. Chase a bird here, dig a little hole there, sniff this and trot over to that... The problem of course is the mud, 
and Ru has quite had it with me washing the mudballs out of her feet before she's allowed back in the house. She's very happy to be a ranch dog (and see if she can snarf down horse-poop when I'm not looking) and doesn't understand my obsession with keeping cooties out the whelping box.
I called my friend Laurel, who's been breeding greyhounds for about 45 years, and asked when I should start to panic. She said, in essence, that as long as Ru is: eating, drinking, sleeping, peeing, pooping, and playing + not running a fever + I can feel puppies moving (the little darlings are doing the Macarena today) = don't panic. Monday would be 63 days since the last breeding, so Monday would probably be the day to get concerned. Or not, if all-the-above is still normal.
So, for my birthday, I'd like an extra dose of patience. Seems like I'm going to need it.
2100 update: Hm, maybe that is a real temp drop (green line). Sweet dreams!
I spent last night in a sleeping bag on an air mattress, on the floor next to Rumor's whelping box. Just in case. Other than my complaining about her gassy-ness and her disdainful looks about my snoring, it was uneventful.
This morning's temp was higher than yesterday's, but still a smidge below normal. Her appetite remains hearty, she had a romp on our walk around the pasture, and looks for all the world like she'll stay pregnant for another month. Her temp at 1445 was 100.0 F, which, if Hutchison is to be believed, the temp going back up is "the sign" that labor should start in less than 24 hours.
We'll see. As my friend Sherita says, bitches don't read the books.
The last mare I bred had me waiting for an eternity. The ranch manager called to say she believed the mare would deliver early, as she was bagging up and getting muscle slack. So I drove out with Dot (gotta sleep with somebody!) and the trusty air mattress. And proceeded to sleep in my car for a month while the mare went full term. She dropped a stud colt on a moonless night, precisely 341 days after she was bred, not one minute sooner. Which I slept through, just 10 feet away. Prey animals are masters of sneaky.
I have stacks of books, CDs, and fluffy pillows in between the whelping box and the first aid supplies. Nothing to do but settle in and wait.
0830: Rumor's temp was a little lower than usual this morning, we'll see what the afternoon measurement shows. I notified the local emergency vet so they know her status.
0930: I re-freshed her coat trim, washed her belly, and changed out the bedding in the whelping box. You can see she's looking very pregnant at this point, and now naps stretched out rather than curled up.
She looks peaceful, doesn't she?
1200 - FINALLY I got a copy of the x-ray from Monday. If you don't want to count skeletons, don't look too closely:
1430 - Ru ate lunch as usual, and her temp check was also lower than yesterday. We'll get another data point before calling this a "trend".
2045 - Appetite normal, temp actually .2 higher than 24 hrs earlier. So, not a trend, possibly even a false alarm.
Time will tell!
No surprise, this is going to be a puppy blog for a while ;-)
Yesterday it was a "maybe" in the afternoon, this morning there are unmistakeable signs that Rumor is nesting. The blankets in the whelping box are in a rumpled pile, sort of circular.
The tray on the left is the reflector part of the infrared heater. It was covered up, but no, Ru needed the blankets elsewhere.
The whelping box is set up in the study. Lots of privacy, good light, sliding door to the outside, and I spend a lot of time in here. And room for an air mattress for me, so I can sleep in here.
As for her due date, well, let me point out that Anthony arrives home for spring break on Saturday afternoon. So my entry to the puppy pool assumes the worst possible scheduling conflict. Oh well.
We took Rumor to the repro vet specialist today for an x-ray to get a count of the puppies in the Ahdin Litter, due the end of this week. I am delighted (and more than a little relieved) that everything is progressing fabulously well and looks to be on track.
So we have a count of complete skeletons (the only kind visible, excellent news), and a best-guess on due date. If anybody's interested in a little just-for-fun puppy pool, post your guess in the comments: date & time of whelping, total number of puppies, number by sex, number by color / markings. Once the puppies are whelped I'll post the details and we'll see who got the closest.
For those interested in playing, here are some details on the parents:
Py is a self gold, not a black hair anywhere on him. Both his parents red brindles, sire IM, dam self. He has 2 black&brindle sisters, and two spotted sisters. Rumor is a self brindle with silver undercoat. Sire is a black-tipped self brindle, dam a self sabled-red. Rumor has produced two sables, and has a spotted littermate.
And everybody: fingers crossed for an unremarkable delivery with healthy mama and babies, whenever they come!
A betrayal of the worst kind.
A horrible tragedy, made worse because children witnessed it. Tilikum reportedly grabbed the pony tail of his trainer, Dawn Brancheau, pulled her under water, and Brancheau was drowned.
Is it possible that the tickling of the trainer's hair on the orca's nose triggered a feeding reflex? Or the latest murder of one sentient being of another?
Training predators is not like training omnivores or prey animals. Part of my practice frequently involves evaluating behavior to determine its intent and its cause - and getting it wrong sometimes goes very badly. There are few companies that insure dog trainers, and fewer still that offer riders for dangerous dogs - known biters. It never ceases to disappoint me how many people will state "no bite history" during the intake interview, then later reveal "oh, he nips all the time" when I observe some behavioral clue inconsistent with the history.
I get bitten every couple of years by a client's dog; it's part of the risk package I accept in doing this work. I've once been dragged off my feet with a bulldog clamped to the ankle of my pants, been bitten several times on the leg, a couple of times on the arm (thank heavens I always overdress: heavy jeans and long-sleeved shirts), and once in the face (I looked like I'd come out on the wrong end of a bar fight). And I've had one, a golden with *too* much toy drive, grab my ponytail. Twice. (The second time I reflexively smacked him - he never did it again.) In virtually every case, the dog's bite history was incompletely revealed to me by the owner. I'm a LOT more careful about the language in my waiver (all dog bites I witness will be reported to the State), and I give the owners' reports little weight. I count on my own skepticism and observations to keep me safe.
Dogs bite. They have teeth. Even a stable dog will bite if sufficiently provoked - the rules of self preservation apply. Because there are so many undiagnosed unstable dogs out there, it's best to be really really careful. They over-react to benign provocation, and the results can be disastrous. I love working with dogs, but let's not pretend they are robots. A good dog is a treasure, a bad one is a danger. Sometimes knowing the difference is obvious; sometimes it takes skill.
And sometimes we just get it wrong.
I know nothing about training marine mammals. I do know they use R+ methods, as I do. So the loss of a fellow traveler in the world of training predators is keenly felt. By all reports, Brancheau died doing what she loved. Cold comfort. My heart breaks for her family and colleagues.
If anyone has noticed, yes this Blog is sadly stale and out of date... the best intentions and the road to hell and one-way tickets and all that. You know how it is.
The Ahdin Litter is due in less than two weeks and I am both excited and terrified. And trying to cram a lot of off-the-ranchero activities into the few remaining free days between now and then. Which leads me back to... flying solo.
Well, more accurately, walking solo.
Yesterday was my first official gig as a judge. It was my great privilege to judge Desert Hare Classic in the land of the toughest jacks to be had.
Talk about exciting and terrifying!
No small potatoes this event; while there are no points available the bragging rights that are at stake are significant. The event is run under TCC rules, so I spent many hours the last few weeks brushing up on the finer details. Because the winner is determined by a brace elimination, I had to be comfortable with those procedures as well. The DHC is open to any dog, which appeals strongly to my sense of fair play and tough competition. This "bring it on" mentality applies to USBCHA trials as well, and while one typically sees only border collies at the events, any breed or mix is welcome to try and prove its mettle. Best dog on the day, regardless of pedigree, wins. Amen.
There was a nice mix of hounds and people: locals, out of staters, dogs, bitches, young, seasoned, purpose-bred all. Whether easily recognized (greyhound, saluki, whippet) or known only to a sighthound connoisseur (longdog, lurcher, staghound, galgo), their lean muscled bodies and intense stares pegged them of a single mind: find the rabbit.
A word about these lesser known breeds; the idea behind their development and refinement is deceptively simple. Fast as greyhounds, durable as salukis, corner like whippets, endurance like pointers. Brilliant cooks with DNA as ingredients, the breeders of these hounds add a touch of this, a pinch of that, into their breeding programs when and as needed. Color doesn't matter, only the ability to deliver in the field. And deliver they do.
I spent the day walking apart from the gallery, trying to stay ahead of them to ensure perspective of the field and the courses in their entirety. Only two went out of sight sooner than I would have liked, most I saw from slip to distant end. If I could discern voices from the gallery, I was too close. Close enough to hear the shouts when a rabbit appeared, but far enough that no conversation penetrated my senses. While my eyes stayed focused on the advancing hunters, my mind was free to wander... and wander it did. At one point I checked the voice recorder only to discover I'd accidentally recorded 20 minutes of nothing in particular; this morning, out of curiosity I listened to it. I can hear the wind over the microphone, the frequent sniffs of my runny nose, the odd tune whistled absentmindedly, incomprehensible half sentences mumbled aloud. (Pity my husband, this must be what I sound like when asleep.) Walking alone, apart, for the day, in the distant company of good people and glorious hounds doing what they love... it really doesn't get any better than that.
This was my first time judging alone, officially. My previous judging work has been as an apprentice, and while that experience was essential in preparing for an actual assignment, so was (and will continue to be) the long conversations with any good judge on his/her approach and philosophy to the task. The rules provide guidance, but a surprising amount of latitude exists, relying on the judges' integrity to uphold the spirit of the rules at least as much as the wording itself. My endless appreciation to all the judges that have so kindly mentored and apprenticed me, and discussed the finer points of initiated work versus demonstrated agility and the nuances of awarding points, thoughts on kill credits and the thousands of details crammed into my skull - you're not done with me! - RP, DH, DB, DS, FB, JS, PD, CW. I may have been flying solo, but you were "with" me yesterday, in my head, helping me. Thank you.
The hosts for the event were more than kind, providing good company for dinner, covering my hotel bill, and providing some folding money to boot. Combine that with a gorgeous day in the desert and some of the finest coursing I've seen this season, and it is hard to imagine a more enjoyable day. The courses sussed the dogs out pretty easily, I did my best to make sure my scoring was consistent and fair, the handlers all seemed to understand my placements. (The voice recorder proved invaluable in awarding points and reviewing placements, ensuring a high level of comfort that the best performances advanced. Must use next time.) And of course the picnic lunch after was great, too.
Until next time - Tally ho!
and Ru has quite had it with me washing the mudballs out of her feet before she's allowed back in the house. She's very happy to be a ranch dog (and see if she can snarf down horse-poop when I'm not looking) and doesn't understand my obsession with keeping cooties out the whelping box.
