Kyrie re-wrote the rules throughout her pregnancy. She started giving milk and shorting herself on food around day 59 from the first AI, and kept us up late on puppy watch for a week with pre-labor spasms and panting--and yet she didn't actually deliver the pups 'till the 66th day!
On Saturday, March 26th, I had just emailed our co-owner and Breed Founder, Tina, that we likely wouldn't have pups today because Kyrie had cleaned her breakfast bowl and her temp hadn't dropped like it was supposed to. We were letting the other dogs out, I turned around and boom! She was in labor. One scorching-fast call to our on-call vet tech later and we began. It was actually an almost-ideal time; around ten a.m., so we were well awake and fairly energized!
Astra, our big white/buff girl, hit the ground squeaking about thirty minutes after Kyrie's water broke. We were going to call her Luna, in honor of the super-bright moon a couple nights before. But I thought since we are Sparta the Greek/Latin word for "Star" would be appropriate. Zak was supposed to name them but he let me get away with that one--I think because he didn't have any girl names picked out--he was hoping for three boys!
We were really startled to see a white/buff in this litter, and Zak said Tina was surprised too, when he called to tell her the news! We all thought for sure that Leo did not carry the white recessive. Well, we were wrong! It must have come from Grandpa Grizz by way of Holly! We knew that Kyrie had the recessive because her sire is white.
An hour after Astra we got Andros, which is Latin/Greek for "manly" or "warrior", a nice large boy! Andros came out wiggling and was a very mobile pup. He latched on to his first "drink" in no time! He is very dark but does have brown color on his paws and under his tail, so will likely be a black-and-tan dual or perhaps a bi-color. We will see how much black he loses as he gets older! This made me happy because I was hoping that Leo, though a sable, had a dual recessive. I like getting a variety of patterns! The only thing that would have made our "rainbow litter" complete would have been a solid black!
Only ten minutes later, as we were drying Andros and keeping him warm as he fed, our last little one slipped quietly into the world. Kyrie didn't even arch her back or stop cleaning Andros--just bang, I looked down and there was another pup! He was smaller than the others so must have come out easier. At birth he looked like a dark sable. Below, you can see him on the bottom, Andros on the top.
Zak wanted to name our last little boy Maxim (he wanted to do gun names for the whole litter!) but in the end he decided on Ajax! We are going with Greek names to fit with Sparta Shilohs, and since this is our first litter we will do the old traditional kennel naming: our first litter pups' call names will start with the first letter of the alphabet. :) Below, a close-up of Ajax:
Sizes...Astra is HUGE, almost a pound and a half at birth! Andros was just a bit beneath her, and little Ajax was a few ounces short of a pound, though he made up a lot of ground when we weighed him on his second day!
One last thing--I don't know how our Licensed Breeders do it. Kyrie and I were exhausted and we had a daytime whelping with only three pups. Some of our Breeders have gotten thirteen with labor that started at 2 a.m...I am just in awe. They are super-human!
We hope you enjoyed the photos and will keep checking back for more news!
Congratulations!! I luv, luv, luv your pups! They are beautiful & Kyrie looks like she is really enjoying being a Mommy!!! Have fun and I am happy to be a "watcher" of your blog!!
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