Day Three (Updated)

Mary-Ann Sontag January 24, 2021

I suspect another cause of lactation “issues” is lack of water.

Claire drinks SO much but only if we put the bowl under her nose. She is loath to leave her babies and nothing short of needing to heed the call of nature and/or human propulsion compels her from the whelping box.

If water consumption required her to get up and leave the whelping box, she would be dehydrated and that is a bad thing for milk production.

Without tiny life vests on the puppies, we cannot leave the bowl in there — even though we are right here.

So Claire is offered water every 20 - 30 minutes — around the clock — and she drinks every single time.

Puppy weight gain is going well.

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We are entering the Smudge Puppy stage — look at the noses on Orion and Nova…

White on the face creates an illusion — these two puppies have similar heads but the amount of white on Sun makes his head seem so much bigger than Heze.

Kay created graphics that allow us to compare puppies and Coleen sent a baby photo of Ferguson and his sister. So here are the birth photos of the Bright Stars with their dad’s baby pic in the middle…

Thank you, Kay — this is fabulous! SUCH pretty puppies.

Today’s adventure is Degenerative Myelopathy (DM) testing, which involves an easy cheek swab. We are testing to see who is a DM carrier and who is clear — this means NOTHING for most of the homes. A carrier won’t have DM — only a puppy “at-risk” is — appropriately — at risk for DM.

I do not breed in ways that could produce an at-risk puppy (Carrier x Carrier or Carrier x At-risk). Claire is clear and Ferguson is a carrier and so these puppies should be 50% clear and 50% carrier.

It is an easy test and we love data — so everyone is getting tested. The puppies have to be kept apart before doing it, and they cannot have eaten for an hour. I waited until Nova had eaten and then trapped her in a puppy corral…

She promptly escaped and was nursing again. Back to the drawing board.

My next attempt at separation is working well but for the record — no, I do not approve of family separation or kids in cages!

But Lyra just ate and so is happily sleeping and Claire can see her — no trauma around here!

This swabbing thing is going to take all day long.

When I change the bedding, puppies go into a basket with heating disks. I think we have reached capacity…

Have a Happy Sunday!

Evening Photos

While Claire was outside for a quick potty break, Rosebud supervised the current captive. All ten puppies were swabbed for their DM tests!

We zoomed with the Boise crew so they could meet the puppies — Galen sent me this photo.

Day Two

Mary-Ann Sontag January 23, 2021

This morning I jumped down the Fenugreek rabbit hole because someone asked me if I use it.

Fenugreek is an herb with many purported health benefits, including supporting milk production. I do not use it, mainly because I have a high level of comfort with the process of lactation and so have never seen the need to mess around with it.

But I was curious and so I read up — and not by using Google for my info. Here is a partial list of articles I read this morning:

Bazzano, Alessandra N, Littrell, Lisa, Brandt, Amelia, Thibeau, Shelley, Thriemer, Kamala, & Theall, Katherine P. (2016). Health provider experiences with galactagogues to support breastfeeding: A cross-sectional survey. Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare, 9(1), 623-630.

Khan, Tahir Mehmood, Wu, David Bin‐Chia, & Dolzhenko, Anton V. (2018). Effectiveness of fenugreek as a galactagogue: A network meta‐analysis. Phytotherapy Research, 32(3), 402-412.

Ravi, Reena, & Joseph, Jasmine. (2020). Effect of fenugreek on breast milk production and weight gain among Infants in the first week of life. Clinical Epidemiology and Global Health, 8(3), 656-660.

Sevrin, Thomas, Alexandre-Gouabau, Marie-Cécile, Castellano, Blandine, Aguesse, Audrey, Ouguerram, Khadija, Ngyuen, Patrick, . . . Boquien, Clair-Yves. (2019). Impact of Fenugreek on Milk Production in Rodent Models of Lactation Challenge. Nutrients, 11(11), 2571.

My conclusion: milk supply issues are typically cognitive in nature — as in, humans perceive there is a milk supply issue — not that there actually is a milk supply issue.

Education and support are the best things we can do to support milk production — and I am talking about the humans involved because milk supply is actually not high on the list of concerns for a mother dog.

If I found myself in the very rare situation in which milk supply was a real issue — and I had done all the right things over a period of 2 - 3 days to increase the supply (more frequent nursing and increased water/food intake of the mom) — I would be willing to try Fenugreek because there does seem evidence of a “…very mild effect of fenugreek on the breast milk production…” (Khan et al., 2018, p. 10).

The issue with routine use of Fenugreek is what multiple authors identified: the safety profile is not clear. Likely it is okay but more research is needed and I will leave that to the experts.

Bottom Line for me — if it ain’t broke, why fix it?

Here is our morning weight data. I love the new scale but do not like that it doesn’t weigh in ounces and so I did the math and included ounces.

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I also looked up Claire’s birth weight — she was just under 20 ounces at birth (1.25 pounds), and was one of the biggest in that litter. Six of the Bright Stars were born heavier than Claire, which is just crazy because Claire was a big puppy.

This is newborn Claire.

Berners grow into their white and so puppies that seem to have SO much white do not grow up to have that much white — good to keep in mind as you look at the photos of these well-marked puppies.

Don’t be fooled by this peaceful photo — Perseus is an orator…

…and Heze is one of the early adventurers.

SO charming. Every single one of them.

EVENING PHOTOS

Bright Stars: Day One (Updated)

Mary-Ann Sontag January 22, 2021

Claire’s progesterone came back at 1.8 yesterday morning, easily in the safe range for the c-section. The clinic wanted us there in 45 minutes.

I called Suzanne and told her I was on my way— she is a Montana next door neighbor, which means she only lives 12 miles away and conveniently, it is right on the way to Missoula.

As we drove to the clinic, I told Suzanne that I was guessing ten puppies (she did as well) and that I wanted the split of genders to reflect the new president: four and six.

And so it happened.

POTUS #46.

Four Bright Star girls and six Bright Star boys.

Claire is such a cooperator!

The c-section started at about noon, and puppy after puppy emerged.

Suzanne wore her Westminster shirt for luck— she says she expects to see a Bright Star at the Big Show someday. (Heidi — start planning for our road trip!)

Most of the puppies are quite large — poor Claire! Here is the weight chart, in pounds, with weights recorded from last night and this morning…

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We do not expect weight gain right away — in fact, a weight loss of up to 5% is completely normal. Early milk is colostrum and while it packs a big punch in terms of immunity, it is not present in copious amounts like the regular milk will be. Those weights are quite good for this timeframe.

All puppy names are the names of stars or constellations. Nova is a wee stretch on the theme because while yes, a Nova is a star, there is not a specific star or constellation named Nova. Not in the sky, that is. Nova is named for this Bright Star…

Human Nova lives in Minnesota but has a Montana thing…

Human Nova and her family were hoping for a Wildflower but were late to the party and I just did not have the right puppy for them so I hooked them up with Coleen in Minnesota, who did have puppies and who is the breeder of Ferguson (Bright Star dad).

So Human Nova has a puppy named Hattie from Coleen, and we have stayed in touch. Every person who meets Human Nova is blown away by her — she is a Bright Star indeed. Puppy Nova wears a red collar because that is Human Nova’s favorite color. Keep your eye on that girl — she is going places.

This pic is for Jennifer…

The puppies have one job: Stay Alive. In order for that to happen, they need to gain weight and stay warm and not get suffocated.

Dear Husband managed the first night well…

Ten puppies is a lot (understatement alert!). We cannot just wish them well and let them duke it out at the milk bar if we want them all to thrive. And so they have both family time when all ten are together…

…and also times when they are separated into groups of five for the sake of fairness.

The puppies remain in sight of Claire — she loves her babies and is being an attentive and kind mother…

Markings are the frosting on a puppy — they are definitely not the priority, and variations are expected, normal, and charming. This litter, however, is consistently marked with not much that would help us tell them apart without the collars.

There is one who is easy — Sun. He has the only Swiss Kiss in the litter.