All the Fun Stuff

Mary-Ann Sontag May 17, 2025

Do you remember that glorious feeling when you were a kid and the school year was over and summer vacation stretched out in front of you? That is me right now. It is wonderful.

I miss my Montana deer but do not miss their destructive munching of just about anything pretty. Without them, I finally get to have my long planned memorial rose garden.

I am so enjoying making my perfect yard even more perfect.

And speaking of perfect, this is Jordan from the Sparklers (Major x Sparkle). She is eight and enjoying her perfect life. Thank you, Dianne!

And this is Jordan’s nephew, Bright Star Zuber (Ferguson x Claire), with the moose that he found in his well-stuffed Specialty Triathlete bag.

Congratulations again to Team Zuber on a really incredible — and exhausting — Specialty!

And this is Zuber’s brother, Atlas, sitting on my feet yesterday 💙

Atlas was supervising the amazing crew of Heintzbergers and (related) Cranfords who have added “we build whelping boxes” to their already impressive resumes.

Check it out!

Yes, I decided we needed a new whelping box. It is fancy, non-toxic hardwood — the rails are hickory and the sides are sapele. It will be sealed with this food grade product.

And I scored on the whelping box flooring yesterday. I knew I wanted a Marmoleum floor, also for the eco friendly properties. I found a place with a remnant that is the perfect size — and they only charged me $50 for it. This somewhat balanced out the price of the hardwood 😬😂🤷🏼‍♀️

The whelping box will sit on the Marmoleum flooring, which will cover the hardwood floor of my living room.

Puppies in sixteen days?! How is that even possible?!!!

I.can’t.wait.

Happy Saturday, friend 🩷

Motherhood Looms

Mary-Ann Sontag May 11, 2025

Three weeks and a day left to go

❤️

Nomograph, Part Two

Mary-Ann Sontag May 8, 2025

Capella’s nomograph is back and it presents a tricky picture.

She has a high titer for distemper and a moderate titer for parvo. This is the opposite of what I have experienced in the past. It means that the puppies will be unprotected for parvo BEFORE they are unprotected for distemper.

Per the nomograph, the earliest the puppies can effectively be vaccinated for parvo is eight weeks. But you can see from the above that eight weeks is yellow, which means the maternal antibodies might be low enough for a vaccine to work — or not. It is, in fact, about 50/50.

Well, that is problematic!

Why?

Let’s say we vaccinate at eight weeks and off the puppy goes to a new home. But unbeknownst to us, that puppy still had maternal antibodies at eight weeks and so the vaccination could not work as intended (and expected).

Maternal antibodies keep waning and are essentially gone in the puppy between 10 and 11 weeks (totally reasonable to assume based on the nomograph) but it isn’t like the puppy turns green or otherwise indicates, “hey! I am ready for a vaccination to work now!”

No, the puppy just marches through the world with no protection from parvo until 12 weeks, when the next vaccination is scheduled.

Holy Yikes. That is terrifying.

Delaying the vaccine by a week or two is an option but sending a puppy home without the potentially ineffective eight week vaccination will cause most veterinarians to think — and sometimes say — unkind things about me, the breeder. After all, what kind of breeder is this that doesn’t vaccinate per the normal schedule?!

FYI: A puppy should not get a potentially ineffective vaccination just to prevent judgment.

Bottom line: I will not leave a puppy unprotected for parvo — it is too dangerous and prevalent. The question is HOW to do this.

To be clear — a vaccination can leave a puppy unprotected.

HUH!? How does that happen?? Again, when maternal antibodies block the vaccination but then are gone a week or two later. That scenario creates a window of vulnerability during which the puppy has no maternal antibodies protecting her, and the vaccination was essentially useless due to timing.

I talked to the CAVIDS lab director, Dr. Larson, yesterday about all this. She is great.

I am still pondering exactly how to proceed but my tentative plan to use titer testing of my keeper puppy to inform vaccination decisions/timing for the litter.

Unless a puppy has complications that prevent nursing in that first day or two of life, Dr. Larson shared that research shows maternal antibodies degrade at the same rate among puppies in a litter — so testing one puppy is sufficient.