Ost is Available

The sad news is Keogh is not going to get bred this year and even if I try thyroid therapy for her, it may not cure whatever it is that's ailing her. SOOOO
Ost is looking for a new home. My only reason for having him was as a stud dog for Keogh and I have enough, MORE than enough, pets around here already. He'll be the PERFECT pet for someone. His information is on my Doodle page... you can go to http://msdoodles.com... or refer people there. Please!
I am really attached to this problem free guy!

Playing Hard to Get

Don't know how every other breeder does it, but when I have a girl come in heat, I immediately separate her from ALL my male dogs, even the neutered ones. I have several breeder friends who put a cycling female in with the male they want her bred with and just leave the 2 of them together until she is out of heat. I don't do that because some females can be REALLY obnoxious... as in downright vicious... with males until they get to the part of their cycle which is called "standing heat" (when her hormones tell her she is ready to be bred.) And if the girl rips an interested boy's head off, some guys lose interest.

So, Cotton has been away from Brogue for the last week... they are in the tv room in separate pens. She is with her mom and grandma and the 2 pens are side by side, actually touching, so Brogue can sniff at her when she gets close but she has room to move away. He started showing interest... pawing through the wire to pull her blanket close... several days ago. She's pretty much ignored his efforts except for the occasional snarl when he's touched her.

Here's how things have progressed since Friday, the first day I let them out in the yard together...
Friday: Brogue wants to sniff and lick. Cotton has a headache which makes her stay as far away from him as possible.
Saturday: Brogue wants to sniff and lick. Cotton prances around near him, then runs away when he gets close.
Sunday: Brogue wants to sniff and lick. Cotton lets him but heads for the hills when he tries to mount. Then she comes trotting back as soon as he looks elsewhere for something to do.
Today: Brogue wants... well, you know what he wants. And so does Cotton. She is this close to thinking it's a good idea....

Moving right along! If only Keogh's cycle had gone this way!

Notes

Some of you may have noticed I've changed the email address above from my regular address BACK to the yahoo one. With all my complaining about yahoo, I failed to give them credit for the area in which they excel... the one of preventing or at least, extremely limiting, spam. Yahoo seems to do it automatically but fastmail (like most others) needs to be set up for it and I'm not very good at following those instructions. One week with my regular address and my inbox was... let's say busy. With new pups coming, I need all the room I can get for REAL email, so back to yahoo for everything else!

Keogh
The results from Keogh's last progesterone test are... exactly the same as the previous week! She's still at 1.4. We don't have any real idea what is going on with her. Until yesterday, the guys were all still VERY interested even though she was in her 3rd week. But yesterday, Cotton replaced her in everyone's affections. It is possible Keogh's thyroid is not functioning properly and that is a very easy and CHEAP fix. But, for some reason, I'm not interested in pursuing it. Guess my heart and soul have been taken over by whoodle-mania and there is no real desire to change.
So I'll talk with Bill again on Monday and decide then what to do about Ke... however, the miniature Goldendoodles, followed by Double Doodles are definitely a passing fancy. The only real problem is what to do about Ost who I bought SPECIFICALLY as a stud for Keogh. I've been thinking about it and will most likely commit to finding him a great home. He is a terrific puppy, much more mature in many ways than any 5 months old pup I've been around, so easy to live with! It is really hard to let him go.

Puppies Check In

Above is Liz's HUDSON and friend, both looking completely comfortable.
Below is Christine's KODA who seems to be turning silver rather than gold!



And Julie reports that OTIS is starting school but already knows come, sit, stay and down. Another savant in the Whoodle world!

New Photo

Took this picture this morning of Emy, Keogh and Cotton and love it. I've added it to the blog permanently (with my profile.) Di was out there too, but as usual, she was camped at my feet. Got some new shots of all four for the website and will get them posted some time today.

By the way, in this part of Tennessee, huge rocks (like in the picture) are part of the landscape. Many of them go down underground for several stories, impossible to remove, so we just work around them. I find them attractive and interesting... but I haven't tried building anything around them... yet!

Good News Bad News One More Time

Let's start with the bad and that is Keogh and the Mini G'doodles AND the Doubles. We've done 3 progesterone tests on her and the level is going down. Now, this is, to say the least, unusual because a bitch's p-level rises throughout her heat cycle and the 2 months afterwards whether she is bred or not. (That is why "skipping" a bitch... not breeding her every heat... is of no benefit to her.) So, Keogh's level should NOT be less now that it was earlier in her cycle... if it were staying the same, okay, we'd just say she's not moving through the cycle very quickly or even normally, but diminishing is a bad thing. She had a very strange heat cycle the last time as well. So unless things have changed dramatically with the next p-test, scheduled for Monday/results on Tuesday, there is NOT going to be a litter of Goldendoodles and most likely I'll decide to spay her which means there won't be any DoodleDoodles either. The whole reason I was interested in the Doubles is Keogh... she is SUCH a great dog! But maybe that is supposed to be enough.

Now the good news
Cotton is in heat! Finally, after almost one year to the day! Right now, Brogue is too interested in her roommate... Keogh... to have noticed (although the other boys have) but in a week or so, he'll be back in the Whoodle program!

Emy and Cotton pups just a few weeks apart... fingers crossed, knock on wood and if the creek don't rise... good thing I laid in a big supply of microchips!

Get Ready - LOTS of Photos

FINALLY! I got around to a couple shots of Ost. Remember him... the Labradoodle pup I bought for my Double Doodle program? Well, he is 4-1/2 months old and quite a good size (as in fairly big, not huge, but... big.)

He's a healthy, happy puppy with a really sweet take on things. He's still in the puppy pen, living with the Poodle pups who are about as big as his head!

And he LOVES everything about the outdoors!

Especially when he's out there with Rida (Querida) who is my 6-1/2 months old Khala puppy

Rida's mama was out of my last Khala litter, maybe 4-5 years ago.

She is rather large for a Khala... probably going to be about the size of a standard Poodle when she's full grown.




F

Whew!

I wanted to make a couple small changes to the website, to separate the Whos from the Doods a little more. Some people just aren't interested in clicking on a bunch of links (I'm one of those people) so I thought I'd give each of the pages it's own url while keeping the whoodlesanddoodles (as well as doodlesandwhoodles) dot com addresses. Sounds easy, right? So why did it take me HOURS?

Part of the problem, of course, is godaddy which, next to yahoo, has to be the slowest website on the 'net and probably the most confusing. Every time I think I've pretty much got it figured out, they make an "improvement." However, I did manage to buy the domain names I wanted. Then I managed to get them forwarded to my host AND to the individual pages I wanted. Almost done, right?

Ha! Trying to keep the website set up the way it is PLUS allowing people to go to JUST the type of dog they're interested in.... all I can say is it's a good thing the sun is out (for the 3rd day in the row) so I have both energy and patience!

But I have succeeded! So from now on, if you are interested ONLY in Whoodles and don't give a fig about what the Doodles are up to, you can go to
http://whoodledogs.com
OR
http://whoodleinfo.com

AND if you're interested ONLY in Doodles, you can go to
http://msdoodles.com for info on the Miniature Goldendoodles

or to
http://doodle2doodle.com if Double Doodles strike your fancy.

Of course, if you still like the original home page with the links, that is still whoodlesanddoodles (or doodlesandwhoodles).com.

Confused yet?

Emy

Emy has been bred! Sparky is going to be a daddy (I hope!) All I can say is, Em is definitely her mama's daughter... some of you vividly remember the 3 heats Diamond skipped because she was interested in EVERYONE but Brogue. Then, all on her own, she changed her mind and they are back to billing and cooing as her last litter proves. I can only hope Emy decides she really REALLY likes Shadow again before he's too old to "like" her back. (He's almost 8. But he's in great health!) Anyway, fingers crossed that we'll have pups around May Day... along with some Spring weather!

Good News/Bad News Revisited

So, Emy's in season. That's the good. She's ready to stand. More good. She's not interested in Shadow. That's the bad. And the REALLY bad is he is the most polite stud dog I've ever had... he's perfectly willing to take "no" for an answer. The other guys in the house are having conniptions every time she walks by... and she isn't just walking by... she's sashaying! But let Shadow get near and she's ready to take his head off. Now, since she is in standing heat, I'm going to try her again with him tomorrow and if she's still unwilling, Sparky gets to be the pinch hitter. Cotton is from Em and Sparky and she's a perfectly wonderful, beautiful, healthy girl so it is a great breeding. And size-wise, it probably won't be much different than using Shadow. Cotton is 33-34 pounds (yep, bigger than her momma) and one of the Shad/Emy pups is under 30 at a year plus, so that's the way the cookie crumbles. Most of the pups will be blond (wheaten) with MAYBE a black or two and partis, if the litter's like the last one.

Miniature Goldendoodles
And more good news! Keogh is back in season. (The girls cycle one right after the other. Cotton's probably not far behind.) And I'm going to do the surgical artificial insemination with her and Sparky. (He's going to think he's died and gone to heaven!) We start the progesterone testing next week as the timing has to be exactly right since it's a one shot deal. Keogh's only other litter was with a standard Poodle and those pups are matured in the 30-40 pound range, so I'm hoping these will be in the 25-35 range. And fingers crossed that they aren't ALL black/silver or parti. I really want a blond girl... fat chance!