A life of a breeder…
A life of a breeder is a long list of searching, planning and waiting….
Searching for the best match for your bitch – I have no clue how many hours I spent searching through data bases, reading pedigrees, staring at pictures, watching videos to see movements, talking with fellow breeders, all in a search for that perfect match that feels right in the heart. What usually happens is that when I find a boy that I like he is too close relative to my bitch. This is nothing strange as we all have types we love and are looking for. The type I like is that one of my dogs and their close and more distant relatives. For this litter it took me two years of searching and planning before I found the right male. Oman felt right already last year but he was too young then. That year I did not even find a male that felt as right as Oman so there was no litter then. Now everything feels right in my heart, which is a must for me to proceed with my plans.
Waiting for the lady to get in heat – This is one thing that I as a breeder definitively can’t do anything about except taking a note of a date each time one of my ladies gets in heat. That gives me the opportunity to estimate approximate time of when next heat will come. For Dottie this means any day from now and until end of November. This is a huge stress factor knowing that summer puppies are easier to find homes to as every puppy buyer wants to combine summer vacation with welcoming a new family member. So now I live under the moto “every day counts” because for the each day that the heat does not come, we get closer to the “real” spring puppies. To see if something is happening I lift her tail and check “the status” on daily basis. When doing this I am always thinking how happy I am that I have walls of my house around me as people who would see me running after my bitch, lifting her tail and wiping her butt with a white paper napkin, looking for blood, would likely think that I am completely crazy.
When the heat finally arrives – Finally! – you think. No, not really, unfortunately. Then the real stress begins. Sires of my previous litters were all living close by so it was very easy to meet them often and I was never afraid of missing the “right” days for mating. This time things are being not little but very different. The reason for this is that Oman lives far far away from us – all the way down in north Italy. More precise 1506 km’s from us and to get to him we will need to drive for 18 hours (non-stop) which means that we will need to spend two days and one night on the road just to get to him. So not to miss “right days” I will make my vet crazy by asking to come to take progesterone test after test to capture the right time to drive to Italy. It simply can’t happen to drive all the way down to Italy to find out that it is too late. And when the vet gives us thumbs up for the trip, I will drag Dottie and my suitcase to the car, drive to Lund to pick up David and let the long drive start. I am so glad that David kindly accepted to join us on this trip as I need to save all vacation days I can for the time when puppies come. So the plan is to work from the car and from the destination. (Huuuge thank you Covid and Microsoft Teams for enabling work outside of the office.)
For now, waiting for the heat to start continues.
