Throw the Ball!: Oda

Showing posts with label Oda. Show all posts

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Chasing Dreams - Blackthorn's Z Litter

A few months ago, I started trying to get puppies using frozen semen from Coal. I didn't try to collect him until he was an older dog, so I was only able to get about 2 breedings' worth stored before he became infertile.

I have seen more frozen AI breedings fail than survive, so I tried very, very hard not to get my hopes up, but inside my head, I was jumping up and down and crossing my fingers and feeling very superstitious. I didn't want to jinx it, anything could go wrong at any time.

Oda--"lightly" pregnant

I chose Oda for this attempt, a breeding I had planned since Oda was a young dog--only to find that Coal became infertile as he got older. The breeding of Coal's brother Jedi with Oda showed me that I had good reason to believe that I would get what I wanted from this combination--sound, drivey, intelligent, useful, beautiful dogs. Getting feedback from the owners of these puppies was invaluable in being able to make an informed decision.

First picture of the Coal x Oda pups!

But breeding via frozen (even with semen I own) is, in addition to being a very uncertain venture with a success rate generally lower than 80%, an expensive and time-consuming adventure. It involved three vets, multiple progesterone tests, 4 trips to Richmond over the course of 5 days, and a plethora of vet expenses over the course of the breeding and pregnancy--every step of the way cost money. Picking up the semen from the storage facility involved renting a container ($150), paying the "prep" fee for the storage facility to load the container ($75), and then a variety of expenses from progesterone testing (5 or 6 tests), semen quality analysis, surgical AI, DNA testing of the semen (to get Coal's DNA on record), and ultrasound (one more trip to Richmond) to check for the developing pups, and an xray (another trip to Richmond) to get a final count.

And, then, on January 17, Oda had four beautiful babies. Every cent and every second were suddenly worth it.

Saturday, May 10, 2014

Oda and her W puppies

I suppose I should do an updated post talking about the V litter out of Xita and Lord (6 pups born Jan 30), and the recently arrived W litter out of Oda and Sumo and the even more recent puppies out of Jubilee and Django (3 girls, 1 boy; May 2), but instead, I'm going to go the easy route and share some adorbs.

Oda did not think that the Squarepants toy was appropriate for puppies, apparently. Here's the 9 "Soda" pups (for Sumo + Oda), born April 23 (5 boys, 4 girls)--getting their ruckus on.

p.s.: At this time, all pups are reserved.

Friday, May 17, 2013

May weekend with dogs and puppies and ducks and goats and sheep

I spent the last weekend with a friend, working dogs and catching up. Had a couple of really good herding lessons with Jubilee. For some reason, I never get pictures of her working, but dayumm, she makes my heart sing whenever I work her. (Bonus news: I re-xrayed her hips this past December and sent them in to AKC--she was re-evaluated as OFA Good based on the 54 month xrays!)

She was laying down some extremely nice work this past weekend, staying back, rating her pace, covering the stock nicely, and insisting that I be correct before she listened to me. Oh, yeah, that's what herding is really about--the human not screwing up.

No herding pic, so here's a stacked shot of Jubilee from this April.

Oda has had a resurgence of, well, let's call it, "ummmph" since her puppies and had to have some attitude adjustments to get back into the groove of working with me--and I did get a few pictures of her working, due to the help of a friend.

Leeroy the goat is not fond of Oda

Nemi had a go on ducks--she's got excellent herding instincts and I look forward to training her in herding--after I do a schutzhund 1 on her. For my own sake, I'm going to hold off on herding with her until I am done with the schutzhund. I also don't want to make her too handler aware/sensitive by doing both activities at the same time. In the one venue, it's about using her mouth in drive with lots of control and obedience. In the other, it's about NOT using her mouth in drive with lots of control and obedience. In the meantime, she has a blast these herding weekends--playing in the water, trying to get humans to play ball, being the mentor for little puppies.

Nemi - play with me?

Nemi, Zee, Calcifer

And young Strider, from the Xita x Jedi litter, is back with me. He had two excellent sessions on goats. He has the potential to be an extremely good herding dog, I think. (He is here for a bit of training and then I hope to place him on co-ownership with someone who wants to work and title him.)