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.

Not dog related

Not dog related at all...sorry.

While WORKING today (hee hee) I was pulled out of duty to ride in the Millarville Ride For STARS. STARS is the Shock Trauma Air Rescue Society (air ambulance) that we use quite often in the EMS service I work for.

Every year they have a big ride as a fundraiser and I have ridden almost every year.

The ride is held on John Scott's property close to where I live and within the district our ambulance service serves. I think over 250 horses and riders were there.

It was great weather and fun was had by all. John Scott donates the horses for the day to the EMS riders like myself.

I'm sad to say, I didn't even know my horse's name, but he was fun...other than when he tried to dump me (3 times)...unsuccessfully.

All photos taken on the greatness that is my iphone.

Huntin' Harper

Amazing how fast they grow up. Seems like just yesterday Harper was little "pink collar".

Now she's a big girl and had a great time on her first hunt at 11 months old.

Harper is from the Prime x Darbi litter of 2008.

Not much to say

Not much to blog about these days.

Trials are done.

Too hot to hunt yet.

I'm expecting Miikka in season ANY second now.

You can bet once that ball gets rolling, I will be blogging a ton.

So Sad

Maiya and I.

I have introduced you to my friend's dog Maiya several times. She is owned by a colleague of mine.

I got to know Maiya very well on my many walks with my friend.

Maiya was put down today due to inoperable Lymphoma.

She was only 18 months old.

I am heartbroken.

I am so sorry Mike and Ray.

Getting old

Man, those kids of mine wear me out. I ain't as young as I used to be.

Picture taking drama

Dottie's owner and I tried to get a nice side by side shot of mother and daughter.

As you can see, Miikka was annoyed with the process. Oh, to be young again, eh Peanut?

Miikka sure knows when to turn on the cuteness...as does Dottie (with human assistance in the "stay" department).

Then Mom showed daughter "how it's done" in the fun bumper retrieving area. Over and over.

It was nice to see that "stick killing" is indeed genetic. Dottie shows off her good genes.

Family Affair

A good week-end for Elmingo!

Shaq x Miikka puppies finished 2nd, 3rd and 4th in the Junior Stake in Red Deer this week-end, and Adey (Tiger x Darbi) WON the Qualifying in Montana.

What was the most fun is that FOUR Miikka pups were in Red Deer and I hadn't seen most of them since they were 8 weeks old. Maggie (2nd place), Matti (3rd place) and Eider (4th place) all competed in the field trial and Dottie came out to watch her siblings run.

Here is a pic of Eider in the holding blind before running a test.

And here is Maggie...

And Dottie.

The four siblings together. From left to right. Dottie, Eider, Matti and Maggie.

We tried, albeit briefly, to get a picture of the pups without any humans, but that experiment proved fruitless.

I got to run Matti to her third place finish. Thanks to her owner Tim for allowing me to run her!! She was a hoot and reminded me of Miikka at her age.

Did something crazy

So I did something crazy yesterday.

I bought a horse....or PART of a horse.

I own a share of "Cactus Cut" now.

He is a gray thoroughbred yearling who will hopefully make it to the races next year.

Horses are my first love and I was heavily involved in them until about 10 years ago. Before I went to paramedic school, I even got an Animal Science diploma with a major in Equine Science in Wyoming.

I rode/trained/showed mostly Quarter Horses, but was also deep into the racehorse world via my family who owned a large breeding and racing stable.

I'll post pics of him and updates from time to time. He left the sale to be turned out for a while and will be broken to ride later this fall.

Red Deer Week-end

Had a good week-end in Red Deer.

Miikka finished the Open the first day with a CM. She ran a very nice trial, but had a Gorilla (with a capital G) hunt on the last bird of the day. I was so pleased with her work.

Darbi went out in the first test. She faded with the wind and couldn't recover. She showed a bit of her old spark, but not all of it. Maybe she's just burnt out. She's been working pretty hard since going to Texas in January, so a nice break this fall with some duck hunting may be all that she needs.

I judged the second day and had a great time with my co-judge. As usual, I learn a lot every time I judge.

Next week-end is another trial in Red Deer. That will be my last Canadian trial for the year, and maybe my last trial this year period. I'm expecting Miikka to come in season soon, and Darbi probably needs a rest.

NOT a chip...argh...

So the ortho guy looked at Darbi's x-rays and gave his report. The little piece of bone we saw on the x-ray is NOT a chip, but a normal part of her anatomy.

The only thing the ortho guy saw on her wrist x-ray was some arthritic changes to one of her toes. This can be enough to cause the lameness. There also could be an underlying soft tissue injury, but who knows. The vet palpated and moved her joints in all directions today without a flinch, but Darbs is pretty stoic.

I ran her on 3 blinds today (she is on Metacam) and she was tender coming back from the 3rd blind, but sound immediately afterwards.

I'll keep an eye on it and go from there. She has a nice long rest coming up, and maybe that is all that she needs.