My wife, Susan, and I like to have a new
puppy come into the family approximately every five years. That formula ensures that we always have a
dog at the top of their game. At the
present time, we have a 10 ½ year old male (Dillon) and a five year old female
(Dena). About one year ago, we began
discussing a new puppy and where to find this new puppy. After much discussion, we decided to simply
breed Dena. She’s an outstanding hunting
dog and coupled with a good male, we felt she would produce a litter of
top-of-the-line future hunters.
We chose a male, Top Gun Prince William, from
Top Gun Kennels in Iowa. Susan and I
have been familiar with Top Gun Kennels for many years. Their dogs are highly
recognized across the country for their field performance.
Now the hard work begins. Due to the distance, we chose a chilled semen
artificial insemination. We chose
Broadview Veterinary Hospital in Rochester, NH to handle the process. When Dena came into season, she had to go to
Broadview to determine exactly the precise time for breeding. This involved measuring progesterone levels
in her blood multiple times. When the
tests showed it was time, then Top Gun Kennel had to take Prince William to a
vet in Iowa to capture the semen. The
semen was then sent in a chilled container by overnight delivery. At Broadview, the semen was then inseminated
to Dena. This process was done
twice. After four weeks, with fingers
crossed, Dena was tested for pregnancy by doing an ultra sound. The test was positive…we had puppies in our
future. However, we had no idea how
many.
At this point, we did a Breeding
Announcement which we posted on Facebook.
We also posted a video of Dena’s hunting skills on YouTube. We quickly had deposits on three
puppies. Considering that we were
keeping one, we weren’t sure whether to accept additional deposits. That concern was eliminated when, on the 62nd
day of pregnancy, Dena was x-rayed at Broadview and we were told that she had
eight puppies.
A short paragraph on how we selected the
buyers. German shorthaired pointer
puppies are in great demand. We’ve had
over 80 inquiries about buying a puppy from our litter. There were two
decisions we made that help sort through all the inquiries. We decided we would not ship a puppy; our
rule was that a buyer had to be within a day’s drive. We also had a very carefully constructed
questionnaire each applicant had to complete and return. If they weren’t going to train and hunt their
pup, they were not considered as a buyer.
This process gave us seven buyers we are very happy with.
On April 6th, Dena delivered her
eight beautiful puppies. All healthy and
squirmy. Each day, for four weeks, Susan
and I weighed them and held them for a few minutes. We wanted to make sure they were consistently
gaining weight and that they had human interaction.
Around the fourth week, Dena was beginning
to lose interest in nursing them. She
still did it but not with great enthusiasm.
So, we introduced kibble (soaked in warm water). There was little hesitation by the
puppies…they ate it enthusiastically.
There is one item to consider when introducing puppies to kibble; the
mother will no longer clean up all the poop and pee. Up until that point, the mother keeps the
whelping box clean of all puppy poop.
Once she stops, be sure you have a weaning box attached to the whelping
box. The pups will quickly learn to pee
and poop in the weaning box. Of course,
that means picking up poop several times a day.
For us, serious poop detail lasted about
ten days. After ten days, we began
putting the pups outside three to four times per day. That began at about five weeks. Introducing
the pups to the outdoors dramatically cut down on poop detail.
On the sixth week, we had a puppy party
for everyone who had given us a deposit.
Puppy buyers were given a sheet with each puppies litter nickname and
they had to give us their preference. As
litter owners, we have first choice. As
of writing this column, we’re in the seventh week and will be making our
decision at the end of this week. All
the puppy buyers are anxious for us to choose.
This is very hard since we love every puppy. We’ll let you know next month which puppy we
choose.
Paul Fuller is host of the Bird Dogs Afield TV program. Paul’s website is www.birddogsafield.com.
