Skatjie's 1st litter:

Skatjie in labour - what a good mother! Emma took all the labour photos and Erica assisted me with deliveries.

Skatjie was interested in her babies straight away, even when she was about to pop another baby, she was still worrying about the ones that had already been born.

Sadly we lost a pup yesterday, due to probable congenital issues - I will spare you the sad details. There really is very little a vet can do for a pup this young, except cry with you! As I explained to the kids... imagine how tiny their little lungs, intestines or hearts are at this age - there is no way a vet could do heart surgery to fix a heart problem. Besides figuring out exactly what the problem is, is so hard! Oh, the the dramas of breeding dogs, I had forgotten how hard this side of it can be on us as a family. (When I reminded Doug of the little Bichon puppy that had weeks of trauma in New Zealand he was quite traumatised at the mere mention of it - poor guy!)

But anyhow there are positives - we have six beautiful little pups in the litter to still enjoy! I took the pups and mum all back to the vet again today for a double check up, just in case. Yes I know - I am totally paranoid. But would so far rather be safe than sorry! Every one got a clean bill of health, even our skinniest, who is real tiny!(That is 3 vet visits in 4 days, two expensive out of hours visits!)

Emma's photo of Skatjie in labour, she had 5 breech births! And managed on her own - well done what an achievement lady!

 Interestingly, this litter - Skajties, has been so totally different from biginning to end to Bokkies litter. You never now how you bitch will do until they actually have a litter. Both are good mums but Bokkie is exceptionally good. The best whelping dam I have ever had (I have had 6 all together) I would never have guessed how they would fare as breeders. Bokkies to look at is skinny and tiny but oh, so calm and actually has a good well proportioned hip width to her advantage. Enough breeder's musings

All Skatjies pups have names names now! I will get their names up with photos in due course.

Here are all six of them feeding contentedly tonight.

These two are the royals... Prince William and Princess Kate. They are the biggest and strongest and always get the best milk, pushing others off to get the best spot - unless we supervise feeding times; this makes this litter quite hard work for us to manage.

Just look at this little darling, Sally Caramel! The smallest dear!

Skatjie has puppies:

After a night of panting and faithful human watchers taking shifts through the night, eventually the pushing began early in the AM, leaving a very tired Mummy dog and leaving us humans exhausted. Out popped a herd of 7 baby cows....just joking, puppies. But seriously they are all black and white or brown and white and so look just like a herd of cows...just too gorgeous. My favourite has a brown spot in the white path  going through its forehead.More later and photographs later too.

The Tails of the Flopsy Puppies:

Illustration and book can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Peter-Rabbit-Flopsy-Bunnies-Potter/dp/0723259941

Do you know the Beatrix Potter story.... The Tale of The Flopsy Bunnies, who all fell asleep in the rubbish heap due to the soporific affects of eating too many lettuces (which had shot into flower and were thrown away because overgrown) The baby rabbits had been scrounging for food with their Dad, Benjamin Bunny because there was not enough food to go around. And once soundly asleep they were discovered by Mr Mac Gregor as he emptied grass onto them and they thought their mother was tucking them into bed in their dreams. a fly settling on one tiny little ear, made the ear twitch and they were discovered; crafty Mac Gregor gently put them into a bag to take home to his wife for dinner; he counted  - "One, two three, four, four five, six little rabbits." Mr Mac Gregor left the bag while he put away his machinery and the baby bunnies mother walked right past the bag not knowing her dears were inside. Fortunately Mrs Thomasina Tittle mouse saw what had happened and helped the distraught parents rescue the babies, and replace the gorgeous babies with rotten vegetables. they then gleefully followed Mr Mac Gregor home at a safe distance and took great delight when Mrs Mac Gregor threw rotten vegetable at Mr Mac Gregor.

And so here is the tale of the tails of our Flopsy Puppies:

The Tale of the Tails of the Six Little Puppies!

Well we often spend time just looking and looking, stroking and kissing our little puppies and we just cannot help ourselves but to count like Mr Mac Gregor in our very best lilting English accents..."one, two, three, four, five, six little puppies." (no not rabbits, we think they are even cuter than rabbits!) And so tonight we just had to take a photo of the tails of the six little Flopsy Puppies: :-) All photographs from left to right....Dogmatix, Boykjie, Checkers, Thunder, Tosh and Dark Chocolate. Yes, in order of their birth - we had great fun getting the puppies to sleep while keeping them in the right order. Mum, (no not me- the dogie Mum, Bokkie) had gone outside (for a run and a toilet break) and so we had to persuade the puppies not to look for Mum. We kept counting "One, two, three, four, five, six 'leeetle' puppies" as we got them in order, stroking their backs and soothing them back to sleep. We only managed to get two photographs of many with their tails all perfectly showing, they love to sleep with them tucked under nice and cosy. Once we had one little pup actually manage to wag her tail at the excitement of arriving and finding place at the competitive Milky Bar. I wonder how many of you can remember going to a Milky Bar in your youth, before the likes of Maccas took over? 

Photograph taken from http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/media/photo/golden-gate-milk-bar

And no I am not that old my Milk Bar was called the Purple Cow in Sea Point Cape town South Africa, and it was much, much more modern than that. Sadly I have just googled and it seems not to be there any more. I digress....

Aahhh..... the pups are so sweet, we love them so much!

And what a great way for you to see the differences in sizes, colours and markings too!

Bokkie: Litter 1, Day 11: Getting bigger, eyes still closed

Dogmatix (below): Boy, our little heavy weight champion! Really he is just the right size for a Tzu, but the biggest in the litter. What gorgeously perfect markings he has:

Boykjie (below): boy. Black mask, with solid gold, our lightest puppy and the most even solid gold- just too lovely!

 Checkers (below) girl: She has very unusual marking, a lovely face and what looks like a saddle on the back of her back with white checker pieces on the saddle. Very cute!

 Thunder (below) boy: is another solid gold with tiny bits of black and beautiful black mask on the face. He has my favourite markings in that he has a tiny white spot on his forehead and a tiny white spot on the tip on his tail.

The tiny tip of Thunder's Tail!

 

 Tosh ( below) girl:  our sugar, sugar dumpling; plump pudding pops, our little greedy guts! She is such a pretty colour, gold under black, her mother, Bokkie, came to us like this. Her face is very black, oh so sweet - don't you love this squishy pup?

 

And below, last but not least our littlest girl but a real feisty fighter who could find her mother's milk a mile away.....Dark Chocolate - the darkest in the litter, just beautiful! She is very similar to Tosh, just a bit darker and not as plump. And funily enough her face is not quite as dark as tosh's face, even though the rest of her body is.

 

Why do Shih Tzus have Crysanthemum Faces?

Shih Tzus faces are gorgeously tight and central just like a good Chrysanthemum Flower. Their little noses so beautifully central, and their eyes alight with the cheerfulness of this happy flower.

 

 This Chrysanthemum picture is from Wiki pictures see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chrysanthemum_aka_white_mums.jpg

Should a new doggie Mum get a vet check after whelping?

Yes, if you are at all worried about your dam...yes, yes , yes! Today I wasn't sure about Bokkie. I knew she had not delivered a placenta last night but as she has been licking and cleaning so meticulously I though she may have delivered it and eaten it over night. But she was still panting a bit today...her room was nice and warm, being winter- was she just too hot? They can still get some contractions as the uterus contracts back to normal size????

Eventually I took her to the vet, as I just didn't feel good about it...he was of the same opinion as me, undecided but thought it unlikely that anything was left behind still. But just in case he gave her an oxotin injection just in case.

And guess what... she delivered her missing placenta on the way home - yahoo, we saved possible complications further along!

Bokkie's New Litter details: Bokkie's pups just 24 hours

Shih Tzu's are wonderful whelpers and good mothers. Because I have only bred Bichons before (all white), I am finding the colour aspect of Shih Tzus fascinating. Bokkie, mother was a solid gold when born. When she came to us she then had black tips on her hair but gold under and she turned to silver - amazing! I can't wait to see these pups develop their colours.

Puppy 1: pictured below.

Male.

Name: Dogmatix

Colour: Dark brown with black spots on white. More like father, Kurumidza, in colouring.

Tim is in change of this pup

Puppy 2: pictured below.

Male

Name: Boykjie ( little boy in Afrikaans) 

Colour: Solid brown/gold, notice the black strip going down the back. Black/darker face.

Jarryn is in charge of this pup

Puppy 3:pictured below.

Female.

Name: Checkers

Colour: Dark brown spots on white, or is it white spots on brown? More like father, Kurumidza, in colouring.

Emma is in change of this pup

Puppy 4:pictured below.
Male 
Name: Thunder
Colour: This is a gorgeously coloured Male. He is a solid gold/brown. And has a white tip on his tail and a small white spot on his forehead.
Looked after by Joshua

Puppy 5:pictured below.

Name:Tosh
Female

Colour: Darker brown than puppies 2 and 4 above, and very little or no stripe down back.

This puppy is looked after by Jo.

Puppy 6:pictured below.

Name: Dark Chocolate: 
Female

Colour: Our darkest pup, black face with very dark brown body.
Looked after by Erica

 

 Bokkie: Mummy! 
She was born dark and had gold undercoat and black on the tips of her puppy fur. She is now  a most beautiful silver; it will be very interesting to follow her pups and see if any of them grow up to be her colour too.
 A very tired but happy Silver Shih Tzu Bliss Bomb!

The milk bar below:

From left to right: Dark Chocolate, Thunder, Checkers, Boykjie, Tosh

From left to right: Dark Chocolate, Thunder, Checkers, Boykjie, Tosh

If anyone is interested in buying a pup, please leave details in a comment and I will get back to you, thank you.