Lili Hunting

Lili (Shaq x Miikka 2007) has had a great year hunting.

Miikka has an appointment on Thursday for an ultrasound to see if the repeat of the Shaq breeding is indeed happening.

Dog Gnomes

I sometimes feel that my dogs are like the famed world traveling garden gnomes. They are becoming seasoned travelers!

Since January of 2009, my girls have visited (in no particular order):

Alberta

Saskatchewan

Manitoba

Montana

Wyoming

Colorado

Nebraska

Oklahoma

Texas

Missouri

Delaware

Pennsylvania

Maryland

Iowa

Illinois

Kansas

Indiana

Ohio

New Jersey

West Virginia

In the past few days my girls have been:

1) To the famed covered bridges in Madison County, Iowa.

What a beautiful location and I saw some amazing bridges!

2) Sitting in front of a Nebraska corn field

3) And my favorite one of all!

Sitting on Little Round Top looking over the Devil's Den at the Gettysburg Battlefield in Pennsylvania.

Time to head home

Here is a gorgeous picture of Miikka's boyfriend "Shaq". It was neat to see him in person again. What a great dog!

Amazingly, even though Miikka has had one litter by Shaq and another (fingers crossed) on the way...the two had never met. The wonders of modern reproductive technology.

I couldn't get a good picture of the two as Shaq only had eyes for the Peanut.

That's okay Shaq, I think she's cute too.

Alas, Arson's 2009 National is over today. He was dropped after a handle in the 6th series. It was an impressive showing for a young dog. Kenny and I now have the LONG drive back to Alberta.

Darbi at the National

Not very often can I get Darbi "she beats me" to put her ears up for a camera. I tricked her yesterday.

I pulled her off Kenny's truck after the 5 millionth flyer had been shot and she was raring to go run the trial.

So, here is Darbs at the 2009 US National. This might be as close as she ever gets to a US National.

For those who have been following Darbi's health problems this summer, it seems she is a 100% now. She ran a week of pre-National in New Jersey and Kenny said she was full of go and ran as good as anyone in the group. I truly think she hurt somewhere bad this summer, but I doubt we will ever find out the cause of her pain. I, to this day, think is was back pain of the soft tissue kind. I'm glad to see her back to herself these days though, and that is all that matters.

Sunset

I love this picture of Miikka in a Delaware cornfield at sunset.

Pre-National Training

I'm going to get around to posting some pics.

This is "Arson", who is Kenny's National competitor this year. He is a young dog at his first National and so far, so good!

Here is Arson on one day of pre-National training in Delaware. It was WET and Cold.

A pic of FC AFC Taylorlab Downtown Dusty Brown.

Bill Eckett with Kiss Of The Devil.

And finally, the "pros" setting up a test on a miserable day.

Delaware

So, I'm at the 2009 National Retriever Championships in Dover, Delaware.

It's been too rainy this week in pre-National training to pull my camera out.

Pics to come as soon as it dries up!!

Lili

Lili (Shaq x Miikka 2007) has had a great fall hunting and training.

Lili is the black dog says Captain Obvious.

Handsome

This is "Chug", from the Prime x Darbi litter.

Isn't he a handsome guy?

Super Singles

Congrats to "Emma" (Tiger x Darbi 2006) for winning her local retriever club Super Singles competition in Ohio!

She's running a Master Hunt Test this week-end and I wish her luck.

Stuck in Wyoming

Now on day 2 of being stuck in Wyoming driving to Colorado.

The girls are having fun though.

Home resting

Miikka and I just got home and she is now resting comfortably.

The surgery went great and the vet said the semen was of very good quality.

Now, fingers crossed.

Ultrasound in 26 or so days.

Tomorrow is the day

Miikka ovulated on Friday. Finally...

Surgical implantation of frozen semen takes place 72 hours after ovulation.

So she is taking a trip to Red Deer tomorrow for surgery.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PUPPIES!

Happy first birthday to the Prime x Darbi puppies!!! Their birthday was yesterday.

I remember the little newborns like it was yesterday.

Don't ask about the lobster...long story...

(p.s. one more puppy was born after this pic was taken...)

Happy Birthday to:

Harper in Alaska

Meg in Ontario

Chug in Montana

Turq in Alberta

Coal in Alberta

Duece in Saskatchewan

Koda in Alberta

More Harper

Alaska looks like an amazing place to hunt and that is where Harper lives.

I love this picture of her.

Miikka Update

So, the test results came back today.

Miikka was 2.4 ng yesterday. That number is USUALLY a sign she has hit the "LH" stage. So, we ran a LH test on the same blood, and it was positive. Miikka will ovulate tomorrow. Breeding to be done on Monday.

We will run one more vial of blood Saturday to be sure she has risen above 5ng (ovulation) as there is the RARE case a dog doesn't ovulate 2 days after the LH surge.

So, new plans for Peanut are:

Ovulation Oct. 23

Breeding Oct. 26

Pups due Dec. 28

Tis The Season

The hunting pictures continue to roll in. It's that time of year.

This is Lili, from the Shaq x Miikka breeding of 2007.

Meg

Here are a couple of pictures of the adorable Meg. She is from the 2008 Prime x Darbi litter and lives in Ontario.

Meg enjoying her first hunt. She sure has her mom's face.

And Meg and owner Jill with the blue ribbon they won in the Puppy Stake at the Mountain Valley Field Trial.

Congrats again!!

Miikka Update

I sent 4 days of blood to the University of Saskatoon on Sunday.

The results I got back Monday showed she had not ovulated yet.

So more blood was drawn Monday and Tuesday, and will be sent in along with Wednesday's blood tomorrow.

She was only at 0.5 ng on Sunday, so we're still a few days off.

Hunting Day

Had a great shoot this morning.

Today was Miikka's turn to get out hunting. She was great!

Here is me and a co-worker of mine with the day's harvest.

And Kenny. Miikka kept stealing a bird from the pile.

So, we let Peanut have her bird.

Progesterone testing on Miikka starts tomorrow morning. I'll wait until Sunday night to send the first batch to the lab in Saskatoon.

Snow Day

We've had an unseasonably cold week, but thankfully we are supposed to warm up in a couple days.

I had a great time walking the dogs today. I hate cold weather, but I love dog walking in the snow.

Darbi loves the snow too!! We took her on a goose hunt yesterday and got 9 birds. She had a blast and a fun time was had by all!

Cold weather does nothing to stop the Stick Killer.

Miz is also visiting. She had a blast in the snow too.

The gang out and about.

FINALLY

Miikka came into season this afternoon.

I guess she got tired of me looking at her hoo-ha every couple of hours.

Progesterone testing will start on day 6 of her cycle.

She ovulated on Day 9 of her cycle on her last breeding in 2007.

So...following that schedule, she should ovulate on October 17 with the breeding to take place on October 20.

Puppies due on December 19ish. Ready to go home Feb. 13ish.

Of course she waited for an inconvenient time on several accounts, but I'll make it work.

Training today

Had a fun day training today.

Turq is up visiting. He is doing great. He seems to enjoy the runs through the mud post training too.

The "girls". Miikka-"I'm the cutest thing EVER" and Darbi "she beats me, I swear she does"

No pouty look when you're getting birds, eh Darbs?

A very happy Darbi running to the bird I threw.

There were no sticks for Miikka to kill, so she showed off another one of her many talents.

Nice drool Peanut.

Thank goodnees I opted for the Artificial Insemination, as no boy dog would want you looking like that.

I am STILL waiting for Miikka to come into season. Geez...any minute now.

Of course she's going to wait for the most inconvenient time for me, I'm sure of it.

I have a trip to Delaware planned in November for the U.S. National Retriever Championships...so I'm sure she's holding off to make me panic.

Congrats to Meg!

Meg (Prime x Darbi 2008) won the puppy stake at the Mountain Valley field trial in Ontario this past week-end!

Congrats to her and owner Jill.

Hopefully this is just the beginning of the many blues Meg will get in her lifetime.

On another note...it's a hump fest around here. That is usually a sign that one of the girls is coming into season. I expect Miikka in any minute now and had the Shaq semen shipped up from Oregon today.

Happy Belated Darbi!!

I'm a bad, bad doggy owner.

I forgot Darbi's birthday.

Darbi turned 7 a few days ago. SEVEN!!

I don't feel so bad though, I usually forget my own birthday until my mom calls me singing sometime in the day.

I won't sing to Darbi though...I love her too much.