MM-Litter

The MM-Litter is devoted to my Pepper who died far too early and far too tragic. Pepper was such an extraordinary and loveable dog that I would have loved to make a repeat litter which won’t work  (see FF-LitterWurf)). What I can do is a three-quarter-repeat-litter. For Payla -halfsister to Juicy, Pepper’s mother, both out of Ripple alias TREWATER RAPUNZEL- I will take Pepper’s Daddy as stud-dog: CH O‘ CONNOR V.’T KEIJERSHOF oder ganz einfach Connor. He fits to Payla – official name DAILUAINE BROWN-EYED-GIRL as he fitted to Juicy. Therefore the pedigree of the MM’s looks as promising:

Already the mating showed that this litter was quite the opposite to the FF-Litter. It follows the motto „no major incidents, everything is honky dory“ – despite three exceptions:

All these three exceptions happened during the whelping process. Exception No. 1 was the place of birth which was Giessen and not at home. Why? Because Payla took her time whelping – allmost 40 hours. It all started in the middle of the night at about 4 o’clock she gave us the impression it would start every minute from now. In the late evening it was still the same – impression yes but action no. I had my third nervous breakdown at 10 p.m., every possible horror-scenario ran through my brain. „I’m fed up with this, I can’t stand it any longer, we go to the vet-clinic with her.“ „Yes dear“-said my dimwit-hubby, what else should he say!? So we packed up everything we would need: basket, hot-water-bottle, yarn, Frubiase, Chimichifuga, towls, vetbeds … and Payla. Through heavy rain and thunderstorms we raced towards Giessen as fast as we could, sometimes even with about 40 mph. At the vet-clinic they examined Payla very thoroughly – scan, x-ray, the whole works – and the result: everything’s fine and absolutely normal – you should have seen the look I got from my dimwit-hubby. The nice doc sais: „Well, you can drive home and whelp there, but you are as well heartily welcome to stay here where we can look after you and Payla.“   „We stay!“ „Yes dear“ – done as said. We kept on waiting for something to happen – for about another 8 hours. Me and Payla in the dog-basket, my hubby sitting on one of the most uncomfortable chairs in the whole universe (the consequences of that will follow).

Shortly before 7 o’clock the next morning it finally started. „Action!“ – shouted my nucklehead-husband. The first pup was born „A broad, what else! Women never come on time and they always hold up traffic!“ a brimming of intelligence comment – by whom – just guess.  After the first one the others came out rather swiftly. For one pup too swiftly – Payla lost him on the grass when we went for a pee tith her – however we found him swiftly. Everybody took special care for this pup – payla maybe a little too much. Because he felt in the grass he needed cleaning, Payla was a bit too careful – while licking him clean she ripped the intestines open – and with such a tiny pup no help possible. So, this was exception No.2 to“no major incidents“

Exception No. 3 happened the next night at home. Payla was as dead tired as we were after the 40 hour whelp-marathon, so she didn’t feel that one of her pups was laying under her, the pour soul suffocated.  No one to blame, things like that happen. It’s sad but it belongs to breeding. It’s the dark side of breeding.

By the way, my dimwit thinks there is another exception. Caused by the more than 14 hours sitting one one of the most uncomfortable chairs of the universe he developped phlebitis in his right leg. He was lame for 6 weeks. In my oppinion fiveandahalf weeks were pure whining, so for me it’s not really a true exception.

Well, that was a little too much blabbering, sorry for that. Back to the real story – the MM’s.After incident 2 nothing extraordinary occurred, shortly after noon we could head home for a good sleep finally. Oh, I almost forgot we got home with Payla and her wonderful puppies. In the end there were 5 girls and 3 boys. Good job Payla and Connor! And here they are:

From now on really everything was honky dory or peaches and cream. I had rarely such a homogenous, balanced litter – no crybabies, no macho-dominator, no terrorist. They all are loveable, friendly, vivid, cuddly, nice to everyone – shining examples  of Golden Retriever puppies. But take a look yourself, here is the beloved and meanwhile famous caroussell – just click on the pic and you’re in or just let it fly by!

After these mass impressions, it’s time to present the little MM’s one by one and in full glory the beauty shots please: