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.

"Apple Girl" by Erica

When I was a little girl, Jessica had a friend called Abbygail, but as I could not say Abbygail, I called her "Apple Girl". Unfortunately she was not very fond of apples. But as you can see this "Apple Girl" is crazy about apples. And i am convinced that the apple's sallicilates make her hyper as she is always crazy and frolics around the yard as if she is in outer space, after eating her apples! Unfortunately this dog is very bossy and likes to get what she wants. If Skatjie/Apple Girl has a bone and the other dog has a bone, Skatjie will hide her own and take the other dog's bone! Even more so with apples. So we try to separate them when it is 'apple core' time or treat time. When I feed them I also separate them, otherwise little Bokkie would fade away and Skatjie would be as fat as a hippo! At least Bokkie is springy and jumps and is fast so she always tries to get the better of Skatjie and usually does. But Skatjie does not give up and in the end it is the scaramangie who wins. Skatije found this apple after Jarryn had dropped it