Thanksgiving

I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving — or if Happy is not attainable, I hope it meets the bar for Adequate. Regardless, it is Thanksgiving.

I am grateful that I will not be Driving Miss Daisy on Thanksgiving. Her progesterone is taking a slow, leisurely climb into FertileVille.

LH = Luteinizing Hormone. That is what triggers ovulation but it is hard to measure, and so we measure the companion hormone, progesterone, instead.

Unlike humans who ovulate eggs ready to be fertilized, a dog’s eggs have to mature after ovulation before they are ready to tango. This maturation process takes 24 - 48 hours, and then the eggs remain viable for 2 - 3 days.

Pinpointing ovulation helps us breed on the optimal days; poor timing is the most frequent reason for failure when breeding dogs. Based on Daisy’s progesterone level, it appears that she should ovulate today; we will draw blood again tomorrow to confirm. That means her optimal breeding days will be Saturday and Sunday.

Since Daisy’s breeding involves travel — in a pandemic — precision in the timing is even more important because I want to minimize the time I am out in the Great Viral Unknown.

The pandemic makes all of this so much harder. It is challenging enough finding a stud dog who checks all the boxes but in the age of Covid, an additional requirement had to be added: Stud Dog Owner Takes Covid Very Seriously.

Mission Accomplished. I am very, very happy with the choice of Daisy’s future husband, both because I love the dog but also because his owner is smart and careful and safe.

I highly recommend a Pandemic Kitten — Rosebud is hilariously entertaining.

Sparkle and Rosebud

The Wildflowers are six-months-old today! Happy Half-Birthday to all of them, including our Pozy Clarkia…

This is Pozy on the walk down the driveway away from our house and towards the main road.

As I wrote that, I realized I need to clarify that the main road is that dirt road by the small house. A Main Road in Montana is different than — say — California.

Wherever you are, whatever you will be doing or eating today, I hope you find the things that inspire gratitude.

Please have a Grateful Thanksgiving.

Round One: Done

As breeding adventures go, this was pretty tame.

The transcervical insemination was a bust BUT we had the ability to go directly to surgery and do an implant…

Claire’s progesterone took off like a rocket BUT because we were testing daily we knew that and used the info to go directly to the surgical insemination yesterday.

Another shipment of fresh-chilled semen hopped on a commercial Delta flight last night. At $93 for 1.9 billion, that is a REALLY cheap seat for Team Swimmers.

This morning we did one last progesterone, and Claire was artificially inseminated with the new arrivals — just a regular AI given that she had the surgical yesterday.

Now we wait — and turn our attention to Daisy, whose progesterone is at 1.77 this morning.

WHEW.

Have a great Sunday.

Puppies, Old (relatively) and New (hopefully)

This is Kadi (Wildflowers) doing a duck herding clinic. What I love about this photo is what it reflects — that this intelligent working dog is having an interesting life that involves fun activities that use her brain. Thank you, Eden!

This is a photo of Zeus and Buttercup, Kadi’s littermates.

Looks like Zimmer has some competition in the Freckle Contest! Thanks for the photo, Penny.

Those two get to see each other regularly because Team Zeus takes classes from one of Buttercup’s humans. I am so grateful to Georgia and Patty (Team Buttercup) for welcoming and supporting Penny and the rest of Zeus’s family into this fun world of Berners.

Pozy Clarkia has mastered retrieving.

She will find things to bring to me, presenting them with hope that I will throw whatever it is.

I love that she understands her agency, and chooses to engage. That is the foundation of a successful working dog.

Her training is in micro-sessions spread throughout the day — sometimes those sessions are two minutes and sometimes they are ten seconds. It is amazing what one can accomplish in a very short amount of time.

The breeding update is that Claire will be bred today and tomorrow. Let’s cover all bases, shall we?

Mayan fertility goddess, ixchel (source: Wikipedia)

And of course…

The world famous Lucky Green Socks!

Have a Super Saturday!