To celebrate their 1 week birthday puppies started wearing their proper puppy collars so it is now easier to see who is who as the collars are little thicker.

Puppies have had their first 2 nail cuts (thats 328 little nails in total cut) and are getting very cuddly with us, climbing all over who ever is sitting with them & learning the positive connection with us humans. 

Ellie has been a brilliant mum and very careful around the puppies so she does not step on or knock her babies. She does have a funny habit of confusing the babies by rolling on her back whilst they are feeding, at the moment the babies can not reach her teats when she does this and get very confused of where did the milkbar suddenly disappear! Of course after next week or so they will be able to see so Ellie will not be able to entertain herself in such manner much longer.

Unfortunately Ellie developed mastitis so she has been little unwell for the last few days with high temperature, but we caught it in time and trip to the vets, hot waterbottles & milking the affected teat have worked and she is back to normal again. 

Mastitis is something they can get once the milk really starts flowing, it can develop very quickly and indeed took less than an hour to do so with Ellie.

Sasha seems to think she NEEDS to go and care for the babies and has this daft look on her face when she  promptly tries to go in to the puppy room everytime she has a chance (of course she is not let in as mums don’t generally feel comfortable with other dogs near by this small babies). Star seems little unsure of all the puppy smells on us and not quite sure how she should react. She has tried to have a sneaky peek through the hatch connecting the puppy room and kitchen of what is it that makes the noise and keeps us there. We let her and Ellie have a little play yesterday, well it was Star going nuts seeing her friend again and Ellie pretty much ignoring "the loopy pup".

Here is a link to a video I took yesterday. 

Orange girl is a very active baby and "runs" around the box all the time, this time ending up checking mums mouth out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v66Mhdd_4Us&feature=youtu.be

 

All the girls are doing great but we have not part taken to many doggy activities due to my ill health (a whole different story linked to a mouldy house we lived in).

I took Ellie to the WW-11 show in Paris.

I had already booked&paid for everything so I thought we should still go even though Ellie was totally hairless and should have been hidden away, not shown to the world!

We were extremely disappointed in the organisation of the show, it took us hours to get Ellie’s passport sorted out which meant I missed most of the Leo Judging – The reason we decided to attend despite Ellie’s condition was to see the other dogs!

Also, I have to say the cleanliness (or lack of it) of the show was shocking.

For a World Show I would have expected some people picking up poop or at least bins to be provided as even those exhibitors who bothered to pick up poop, there were no bins to put the bags in. I understand not every part of the world is quite so vigilant when it comes to dog mess but the conditions were revolting and this was the first day of the show. I have heard dogs getting sick after the show and having seen the amount of mess dogs had to walk on, I’m not surprised! I will definitely be thinking twice before going to a French show again.

This summer we did water rescue with Ellie and Star.

Ellie passed A & B tests which we are very proud of considering she had never done some of the exercises in the B test.

Next year Ellie will be training for her C test which will be fun.

Star baby was just practising swimming this summer, she had no idea about rescuing anything  - As long as she is praised for her fabulous swimming skills she is happy paddling around in circles looking very proud of herself!

Next summer we shall try doing level A with her, weight being on the word TRY...

We are also hoping to get Sasha back to training next summer and get her through the level B as well.

We have only done 1 UK champ shows this year since Crufts.

This is partly because of girls being in season, partly my skill of missing the entry dates and partly because of cost of it all.

Importing first Sasha and then Ellie a year later and then having the litter that ended up being very expensive experience has kind of eaten our showing budget for few years!

I have loaded pictures and weights under their own page on the website.

Unfortunately not everything went smoothly and Sasha ended up having  to have a C-section as her contractions ended too early and we still had a baby to come out...

Next day Sasha & one of the babies started a  to have runny tummies and despite fighting to keep the babies going, we lost a little girl. As a day old baby she simply could not cope with the illness and despite all the care we lost her.

At this point we were hoping that would have been it and we could settle and start enjoying the babies.

Unfortunately to my horror the next day our other girl started with the same runny belly where they were just leaking water from their little bums.

Vets did not seem very hopeful at all of the babies making it but I told them I am not losing them and the two we had left would make it, no question about it.

It was now obvious we were indeed dealing with a bug and if it was a normal sickness bug it could pass through their system, if only we managed to keep them alive through it for 24 h or so.

So home I went armed with antibiotics, needles to put hydration liquid under their skin, life aid to keep the energy levels up etc... After over 24 h fight the little girl indeed pulled through and has been catching up with her heffalump of a brother since!

It has been quite an experience as a first litter of our own and I have to admit when Chris asked me when is it Ellie will be having babies he was really trying his luck or wanting to have a black eye!

So we only have 2 precious babies, Stella Star who will be staying here at Cleon and Prince Pogo who will be going to a place far far away... like princes do

But that will soon change as our babies will be due in few weeks and regular updates will be posted so all our puppy families can follow their baby to grow before they are allowed to visit.

Ellie has attended two shows, getting a second in Junior in both(losing to the same girl both times as well  )

Sasha is doing brilliantly, growing the belly and wanting to eat for england!

Another update coming very soon with pictures of our mummy dog.

Ellie ws also LPN1 Tetsed at the club show and to our suprise came back as D/N, carrier. There are no known cases in her family, it just shows the gene mutation can "travel in the line" and as long as breeders have been lucky and not put together two carriers no affected have been born. Both of Ellies parents will now be tested to see where the gene mutation is coming from.

The Scientist have had a breakthrough and there is a test for LPN1 available for Leonberger breeders to use.

LPN1 accounts for 1/3 of Polyneuropathy cases in Leonbergers, there is no genetic markers found for the other forms as of yet but we are one step closer to defeating this inherited illness that affects our beloved Leonbergers. LPN1 is  responsible for the form of Polyneuropathy that affects young dogs so to be able to screen and prevent dogs with the young onset LPN being born is great news.

Anybody looking to buy a puppy should make sure test is carried out and clear on at least one parent of the litter. If one parent is clear this means no affected puppies are born even if the other parent is a carrier. There really is no excuse not to test dogs used for breeding!

The recommendation at the moment is not to exclude carriers from breeding but never breed two carriers together as affected puppies can be born from this combination.

Sasha gave a blood sample when samples were collected for developing the test and we have now received Sasha’s results and are happy to say she is LPN1 clear.

This is great news as my previous girl did have late onset symptoms and I have now spotted her half sister being tested and being a carrier, which means my girl could have easily carried the mutated LPN1 gene too (approx 50% of carriers will get late on set symptoms). In her case her bark changed and her movement did too but when the illness manifests in an older dog it is often much milder and dogs can live with the illness where as with young dogs, the development of the illness is much more rapid and leads to early grave.

More information of LPN can be found in the leonberger union page:

http://www.leonbergerunion.com/index2.htm

We have been very busy moving house and travelling! I have not got internet connection sorted at the new house, hence the lack of updates lately.

Unfortunately Sasha’s scan has revealed we will not be having babies this summer. She has had very strong phantom pregnancy signs since she was mated and definitely got us fooled till the scan. We shall be trying again from her season in the end of the year.

This year seems to be very bad year for Leo babies, many bitches are missing...

Which might not be a bad thing looking at the numbers of Leos going through re-homing. I believe this year we have had 46 dogs going through the club re-homing, which is unacceptable high number!

Somebody is selling their babies to unsuitable homes and leaving others to pick up the results!

Our new imported girl hs joined us here is UK!

WELCOME to UK Ellie! Rekileijonan Hunaja-Pupu among Cleon is home!

Baby Ellie has joined us and the girls are settling down together just fine.

We attended the World Show in Denmark and brought her home with us.

Ellie did very well, she was in Junior class just by a day. If Leos had been on the day before she would have still been in puppy class so she really was a baby in a class that covers girls up to 18 months old. Despite her age, she got an EXC and went out just before the girls that were placed so was in the top 7 in a class of 20 so we are very pleased.

We will be going for an ultra sound next week to check if Sasha really is expecting or if she is pulling our noses and just using the "pregnant" status to get extra cuddles&Treats. Not to mention the middle position in our bed, there is no better place to sleep to get daddy and mummy cuddles at the same time... With the hot weather we have had, it has been lovely to have 50 kg of fur to keep us warm. We also really enjoy the slight vibration a panting Leo on a spring mattress causes.

The other day we were driving somewhere with Sasha at the back... We stopped at the traffic lights and our car rocked from side to side, What is that??? Oh, it is only Sasha changing the window she is looking out of!  Even when the car is stationary in the car park, ours still moves like the motor is on and it is ready to go, the joys of having a hot panting giant dog at the back ... I wonder if having two will balance things out and we will be "leveled" all the time?? Will they cancel each other out if both are panting??

Before the ultra, I will be going to Finland to see our young lioness Ellie.

I have added some pictures in Ellie's album but as I'm visiting her soon, brand new pictures of her coming soon.