Greetings to my loyal readers and let me apologize for my extended absence.  It is show choir season for our daughter, plus mid-terms for me both as a HS English teacher (for this semester, at least) and in my last semester at graduate school.

I am excited to announce that both females were successfully bred.  BB is pregnant with Sam’s pups and Velma is pregnant with Ben’s.  We will be keeping a male out of Ben and Velma.  Ben is a pup out of our first breeding pair of Sue and Sam, so we are super happy to bring Sue’s blood into the future.  Velma is out of De Jac Pine Kennels in WI, who also breed outstanding hunting dogs.  Check out the “About Our Dogs” page if you would like to look at additional pedigree or health info.  We have an additional 16 reservations on top of our keeping a puppy, so I am not accepting any further reservations until the pups are born.  We should know within the next 3 weeks.

Here are some shots of pregnant BB:

Pregnant BB in the living room.

Pregnant BB in the living room.

Pregnant BB outside.

Pregnant BB outside.

Here is a video of pregnant Velma.  I just got word now that Charles is home from today’s NAVHDA training that Aaron (Velma’s owner) texted him that her temp dropped today to 99.  So, it should be within the next 24-48 hours that pups are coming or on the ground.  

We are all ready to go for the next stage here.  BB is in the house when we are here or in the whelping area when we are not.  Since it is nice out and we are home, she gets to spend time in her outdoor kennel today.  I expect that we are still 2 weeks out on BB.

The whelping area

The whelping area

Here is a shot of Fire (1 yr old from our “G” litter of Sam x BB) with Charles at today’s NAVHDA training session with our Heartland NAVHDA Chapter.  Word has it that there were 5 griffs there today!  Photo by our 10 year-old son, Conrad.

Fire and Charles working on "whoa" today.

Fire and Charles working on “whoa” today.

Pupdates

Happy Birthdays to all of our litters this spring!  I am terrible about keeping up with who dropped when.  Here is a shot of Whiskey (far right) from our “A” litter between Sam and Sue in 2010.  I can’t believe that we have been at this for 5 years now!  What an amazing adventure, full of new knowledge and fun.  Whiskey lives in Nevada with his human peeps Pete, Deborah, and Andi.  Here he is with his rainbow coalition of Basco the old griff, Tucker the baby Golden Retriever, and Ruger the lab.

Friends and our Whiskey.

Friends and our Whiskey.

Jimmy and Sandy shared this picture of Zoey, from our last litter between Sue and Sam 2 years ago.  It was our E litter.  Great job guys on the deer track in Oklahoma!

Jimmy and Zoey the deer tracker

Jimmy and Zoey the deer tracker

I suspect that I’ll be blogging again sooner rather than later.  Thinking happy thoughts to Velma and Aaron for a successful whelping.  Aaron has whelped German Shorthaired Pointers and Labrador Retrievers before, so I’m sure that he is ready for this.  I’ll keep you posted as soon as I have news.  Spring has arrived in Nebraska within the last couple of days, so it is a good time for us to bring babies into the world.  My cattle rancher friends have been at it for the past month with cold weather, so I’m glad that we’ve eeked out of that for puppy season.

Having puppies satisfies my mothering instinct since I’m done having human babies.  It is nice to have another mother carry the load.  What good-natured beasts to give us such delightful young to bring into this precious gun dog lifestyle.  Long live the griff!