7 weeks and counting.

Here is Miss Decker, at 7 weeks along. She measures 26 inches around now, so a gain of an inch and a half this week, and now weighs 32.5 ish pounds (based on my not terribly precise method of weighing the dogs using a laundry basket and my bathroom scale).
All is well, she's still eating well, though yesterday she did look at her kibble and decide not to eat it. but did eat a can of Innova chicken and rice over the course of the day.
This morning she ate some canned food and her kibble, so it's all good.
The second picture is one that our friend Anne, in Florida, sent yesterday. She has Charlie, who is Hermione's daughter, Mr. Darcy's sis, and this is a picture of two of Charlie's boys (Morgan and Sherman) at their recent obedience class graduation. Their brother, Lee, is set to start his show career soon, he's entered in several upcoming shows. They were six months old on St. Patty's day.

A Picture is worth......

Here are some pictures that my friend, Mary took at the beach (two weeks ago) and up at Cate School (last week).
Gryffin at the beach, Mr. Darcy at Cate School, Meg at the beach, Mr. Darcy at the beach, and RJ at the beach.

Ch, Ch, Ch, Changes!

Here's a picture I took of Decker today (6 weeks and a day along) and one I took 16 days ago, (just shy of 4 weeks along). You can see she has that "swallowed a watermelon" look now. She's 6 inches bigger around from one picture to the other!

Match Fun

Mom and I took RJ and Meg to the Channel City KC match today in Goleta. I couldn't enter them as they both have major points, but it was still worth going and getting some socialization in. (And there's always the raffle) So here are a couple of pictures I took at the match, Meg and RJ and a view of the overall area.
On the Decker front, she's gained another 3 inches this week, up to 24.5 inches around her growing middle. She and Mr. Darcy went on a road trip yesterday, as Mom and I drove down to Wildomar to inventory the Pem club trailer which is stored at our friend Barb's house. I'm the show chair for the upcoming Pembroke Specialty in May (Thursday the 27th) so I needed to know what was available in the way of supplies, and what I'll need to purchase in the meantime.

Daylight Savings Time!

HI All
Don't forget to set your clocks an hour ahead today.
Mom and I took RJ, Meg and Mr. Darcy to the Apple Valley show yesterday in Victorville.
It was very cold, and exceedingly windy (I hate wind) but RJ managed to make the drive worthwhile by going BoW for 2 points. Meg was Reserve with an entry of 5. Mr. Darcy showed well but didn't do anything.
I measured Decker this morning, she's grown 3 inches since the day we bred her. (to Roger, RJ and Meg's dad) Her mother, Tina Sparkle grew 3 inches (@ 5 weeks) with her first litter, she had 8 in that one. Hermione, Mr. Darcy's mom, grew 3 inches (@5 weeks) in her first litter, she had 10 in that one. I measure them the day we breed them, around the middle right behind the ribcage, and usually if they have a medium to big litter I can see a difference by 4- 41/2 weeks. Saves me a trip to the vet to confirm the pregnancy via ultrasound. And it gives me a an idea of litter size based on how they are growing. Then it's just fun to watch and record the growth each week. I figure Decker has a good chance of having a biggish litter, since her grandmother, Nikki has 9 and 10, and her mother, Tina had 8 and 10.
I just talked to my friend, Sandi, who has Nikki's mother, Camille. She's doing well and was 13 not too long ago. Nikki's sister, Rainey, ws 9 in October, and is enjoying her herding lessons according to Sandi.

Halfway There!

We bred Decker 4 1/2 weeks ago, which means she's halfway through her pregnancy! I'm 99.9% sure she's pregnant which is exciting (and a bit scary). I always worry about them as they get bigger and bigger and closer to the due date. April 11th is d-day for Decker. We can be confident with that date since we did two progesterone tests in the beginning to pinpoint her date of ovulation.
Yesterday we took almost all the dogs to the beach (Rincon Beach) for a photo shoot with our friend, Mary. Very fun. She got some good shots; she's hoping to get some in calendars for next year. It was fun to watch the dogs each have their turn at checking out the sand and surf. Meg was the boldest of the Cardis, which isn't surprising, she's that way everywhere we go. She had great fun chasing driftwood sticks, and was the only one to actually get her feet wet in the surf. Even though we live very close to the ocean, I never take the dogs down to the beach. There's only one beach downtown that allows dogs, and consequently, it often has quite a few dogs running loose on the beach. The other downside to taking the dogs to the beach is that we have natural tar seeps in Carpinteria along the shoreline and trying to get black tar off white feet is just not my favorite endeavor!
Rincon Beach is down the road a bit, and doesn't have tar seeps as such, so it's a bit cleaner. The parking lot is on the bluff so there's a trek down a very long flight of stairs (and back up again) to get there. I used to go to that beach a lot when my Dad was alive as he loved to fish in the surf.
It was fun to be down there again, with the silly dogs.

A Fine Day for a Walk!

Mom and I took Decker and Mr. Darcy down to Ventura, picked up our friend Kathy and her two Parsons, Wyatt and Violet, and took a walk around the Ventura harbor. It was a gorgeous day, if a bit blustery, and the dogs enjoyed themselves. They met other dogs, rolled in the grass, dashed after sunning lizards and greeted other walkers.
Here are a couple of pics of Mr. Darcy, Decker and Violet. (didn't get one of Violet) and one of some sea lions sunning themselves in the water.

Photo info

Several people have commented on the Parson puppy pic, all sitting nicely together. Mary has figured out that if she lets a litter of 5 week old puppies run around for quite awhile, basically tiring them all out, then she can get a quick window of opportunity to try for a fun group shot. They were not sitting quietly, by any means, as their breeder, Suzanne, and I were on either side, placing them back where we wanted them. As we did this, and scooted out of the shot, Mary would shoot many pics, and amazingly, one was a fun group shot.
Quite an effort but well worth it, as the pictures she gets are so good.

More cute Parson pics

Here are a few of the pics that I took. These puppies loved racing around on the vast lawn. I can't wait to take the Decker puppies up for their photo shoot!