OMG Puppies

On Saturday, May 12, Jubilee had her first litter of pups. There were 3 boys and a girl who made it--two very big puppies were stillborn after too long in the birth canal. She did a great job for her first time and has been an excellent mother, surprisingly relaxed considering how intense she generally is. I had 3 girl pups sold to working homes--2 to experienced Search & Rescue handlers and another to a woman who has done SAR and cancer detection with her previous dogs. Unfortunately, Jubilee had 3 boys and a girl, so I have some people who are a bit up in the air. I hate disappointing people, but I have to remember that this is one thing I just can't control.

Jubilee was very tired, but pleased with her babies.
 

Xita was *supposed* to be on a different heat schedule than Jubilee, but she came into heat 6 weeks early. I've had a lot of people looking forward to her litter, so I went ahead and bred her to Jubilee's litter brother Jedi, who is an active herding dog. I'm pretty excited about these pups--and I had so much interest, I had to stop taking deposits. And this past Saturday, May 19, Xita had her puppies--12 pups in 12 hours (7 boys, 5 girls). She kept me running all day. All the pups are strong and nursing well, but there's 12 pups and 8 nipples, I've been monitoring them closely. There's one boy who is growing more slowly than I would like, so I've been supplementing everypuppy with a bottle to help out a little bit. 
 

This is a ridiculously pleased Xita with her 12 pups:

Papa Jedi likes his sheeps...