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Monday 15 January 2018

COLD!

For those of you who have been here, you know we live in a  1950s farmhouse.  The insulation is wood shavings and over the years they have settled halfway down the wall.  The puppies' room is deliberately on the South side to take advantage of the nurturing affects (or is that effects) of the sun.  However, today I wish it was on the North!  The drafts in here are almost enough to blow out a match!  Of course I exaggerate but not by much!  The bitter cold wind is coming from the South today and Environment Canada says it's -23C with windchill.  It has been colder than that this winter for sure, but the wind was coming from the North and I didn't have new born puppies!  A dog's normal temperature is around 100-101F.  So the pups need that to cuddle up to and stay warm.  It is recommend that the whelping box have a temperature around 85F.  I pulled out all the blankets and made a 3 sided wall all around the box to stop the drafts.  And I pulled out my handy-dandy dog warmer that heats up to 101F.  It's an awesome heating pad as it is pressure sensitive and will only turn on when the pups are on it.  You can see from the pictures how they have cuddled up on it.  I plugged in an extra room heater as well (you can just see it on the left).  So between all that I think I'm winning the battle!

And the new whelping box is working out great!  It is 48"X51" and Cruz has lots of room to stretch out even when the puppies are spread out.  My last box was 7" shorter and it did me well for over 20 years.  But as generations progress, the dogs are slowly getting bigger and bigger.  I am actually trying to keep them to a reasonable size and picking the smaller pups to keep for my breeding stock.  But it doesn't seem to matter.  Just like our kids are bigger than we are, it seems it's the same with the dogs.  I'm on my 5th generation now!  Hard to believe!  

Well, I must go.  laundry to wash, dogs to feed, puppies to weigh, dogs to walk etc, etc etc.  Stay warm!





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