Photos:
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 7
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
Day 16
Day 19
Day 21
Day 24
Day 25
Days 26 to 28
Days 29 to 32
Days 33 &34
Day 39
Day 42
Day 45
The last day
The Grandparents |
6th December 2009
Day 49 |
And then there were two!!!
 This
weekend has been quite an event with nine of the eleven puppies
going to their new homes (their "forever homes", as the
Americans call it).
This just leaves Miss Yellow (who will be called Grace and will
live in bonnie Scotland - she is pictured here on the left) and
Master Lilac, who will be going to the South coast. Both will be
leaving us in a week's time.
This is our last update for this litter but no doubt pictures of
the puppies as they grow will appear on our web site from time
to time.
Meagan is likely to have her last litter late in 2010 and this
time we shall be using the best working Irish Water Spaniel in
the UK as sire: Kirkmarsh Mr Doyle of Hiberna (Doyle). He will
be taking on the Labs, together with his sire, Paddy (Radicott
Waterbug) at the Sporting Irish Water Spaniel Club's Field Trial
on 18th December (www.siwsc.org.uk).
This mating will again, by Irish Water Spaniel standards, have a
low coefficient of inbreeding of 7.1%.
In the meantime, Feargal's sister Maeve, will be having a litter
in the new year. |
3rd December 2009
Day 46 |
A lot has been happening since the last update. Firstly, the
puppies are still growing at a great rate and three of them now
weigh more than 4Kg. They have all had their week 6 worming and
continue to get into everything. Books have been removed from a
bookcase and a pile of vet beds lying on one of the sofas has
been pulled off onto the floor so many times that we have lost
count. An IWS owning friend of ours went to see a litter of 6
puppies shortly after ours were born and commented on how much poo 6 puppies make. Well, she should try 11 puppies. This week
we put out 10 large refuse sacks of soiled newspaper and paper
towel, representing just one week's worth of waste.
Big sister Ciara has been having a wonderful time with the
puppies as you can see from the day 42 photos. She now goes in
with the puppies every day to play with them, steal their toys
and even clean them. She is absolutely fascinated with them and
Meagan is extremely tolerant of her.
As you can see from the day 45 photos, Ursula took time out from
work yesterday lunchtime to help take some photos of the
individual puppies. The weather hadn't been good enough until
yesterday to do this but each of the puppies took their turn at
exploring outside, some more courageously than others.
Today we started to take DNA samples (cheek swabs) from each of
the puppies, to be added to the IWS DNA archive held at the
Animal Health Trust near Newmarket. It is vitally important that
DNA samples are taken from as many IWS as possible, not just
those suffering genetic diseases. If you have an IWS swab kits
can be obtained from either The Sporting Irish Water Spaniel
Club web site (
www.siwsc.org.uk ) or the Irish Water Spaniel Association
web site.
We are now getting ready for this weekend when the majority of
the puppies will be going to their new homes.
  |
27th November 2009
Day 40 |
The puppies are now being let loose in the living room every day
and they are into everything. As you will see from the day 39
photos, they met their first small person this week and pups and
child both lived to tell the tale. Claws have been clipped again
and today they were taken to the Vet for a check up. That was
certainly an experience, although the puppies were pretty good.
All are perfectly healthy and the vet was very pleased with
them.
Six of the puppies have now reached 3Kg in weight and they are,
on average, putting on about 100g per day in weight.
Meagan is now having her access to the pups limited and her coat
is starting to fall out (which is normal), so she may start to
look a bit of a mess in future photos until her fur grows back.
The puppies' grandmother (Meagan's mother), Liz, had her eyes
tested again this week and has come back all clear.
|
22nd November 2009
Day 35 |
Quite a lot has happened since the last update. Firstly, a few
nights ago we had drama in the early hours as Miss Yellow
managed to escape from the whelping box and into the run. She
then couldn't get back into the whelping box and screamed the
house down until she was put back. Meagan, meanwhile hadn't
taken the least bit of interest and was just trying to get some
sleep.
The puppies have had their claws clipped again and they have all
been wormed for the second time.
They are all now weaned and are readily eating a mixture of
softened James Wellbeloved puppy Kibble mixed with either Nature
diet wet puppy food or canned Butcher's puppy food. They are
also drinking water.
Steps have been put in to allow the puppies to move between the
whelping box and the run. As a consequence, they are all now
leaving the whelping box to go to the toilet in the run area.
The whelping area now is kept completely dry by the puppies.
This should help with toilet training when they go to their new
homes.
They have had loads of visitors in the last week and are getting
used to being handled by lots of different people. They have
also now seen all six of our adult dogs and Ciara, their elder
sister is particularly fascinated by them.
The puppies are now actively playing with each other (in amongst
the temper tantrums) and they have been given some objects to
explore and play with.
We are now starting to wind down Meagan's involvement with the
litter and have now got her back down to two meals a day, from
the 5 or 6 she was on when she was in full milk production. She
is now also going out for long walks with some of the other
dogs. Whilst we still allow her to go to the puppies during the
day, last night was the first night we have excluded her from
the puppies over night although she is still staying in the
house.
  |
16th November 2009
Day 29 |
The puppies are four weeks old today and have developed beyond
all recognition during those four weeks.
A number of the puppies have exceeded 2Kg in weight as of last
night, with several more expected to have reached 2Kg at
tonight's weighing. They have started part two of their weaning,
with softened puppy kibble being added to the formula milk. All
of the puppies are tucking in greedily and so we have now
reduced their formula milk to half strength and will gradually
reduce the amount of milk they have over the next few days. We
shall also start to introduce them to drinking water in order to
maintain hydration.
They are all very much more active now and are really starting
to get to grips with playing. Last night we let all 11 of them
run around a contained area of the living room and all of them
took the opportunity to explore.
This weekend they were visited by two more sets of puppy owners
and, given that they were interested in the boys, we arranged
for older brother Murphy (now 15 months old) to come and visit.
So they got to meet mum, dad and both an older brother and
sister of these puppies. At one point we had 11 puppies and 5
adult IWS and a huge Ridgeback in the living room - total
mayhem.
  |
11th November 2009
Day 24 |
Today marked another milestone in that the
puppies have now been moved from the bedroom where they have
stayed since birth, into our living room. This will be great for
their socialisation as they will see and hear all of the
household comings and goings. Georgie, our 50Kg Rhodesian
Ridgeback has been to investigate the new arrivals and, as
usual, didn't have much to say on the matter. We will leave the
radio on quite a bit so that the puppies get used to various
sounds. Their radio listening activities kicked off listening to
the Jeremy Vine show on radio 2.
Yesterday, one of the dogs barked for the first time and today
several more have barked. We have also had to endure over the
last couple of days synchronised howling by 11 puppies who did
not like being put into a box whilst their whelping box was
cleaned.
  |
9th November 2009
Day 22 |
The first of the new puppy owners visited this weekend to meet
the puppies and the adult IWS, and for both sets of visitors
Meagan decided to treat them to a demonstration of puppy
feeding. Meanwhile, Feargal, Ciara and Georgie our Ridgeback all
tried to get as much attention as possible.
The puppies are now starting to resemble little dogs, they can
walk and can even drink their formula milk by standing upright
on all fours. They can also be extremely loud and some of them
have started to play, so puppy temper tantrums will soon be the
order of the day. Today, we noticed that the first teeth have
come through on some of the puppies and the ear canals had
opened a couple of days ago. All of the pups are drinking the
formula milk. We are expecting the first couple of puppies to
have exceeded 1.5Kg when we weigh them later today.
We have received the registration documents from the Kennel Club
and for those of you who are not aware, the registration papers
come with free 6 weeks health insurance provided you return the
documents.
Kennel Club Health Insurance
We are starting to hear of the pet names that people are going
to call their puppies. They include: Dougal, Aoife and two girls
called Grace. One of the Graces is being called that because of
a family relative but the other Grace has a much more direct
link to this litter. In the pedigree of these puppies is a great
grandmother called Goldenacre Grace at Killountain, the mother
of Feargal's father Morgan. One of our puppy owners used to own
Feargal's Uncle, Grace's son who they lost earlier this year at
the age of 10.
Grace herself has quite a remarkable story in that as a result
of suffering from a phantom pregnancy she was asked to see
whether she would look after a litter of working cocker spaniels
whose mother had disappeared from its house on the day of the
birth.
Grace, pictured left, as you can see, adopted the puppies,
feeding them from her own milk supply and cleaning them for 6
weeks. After 5 days the mother was found in an RSPCA rescue
centre but was not interested in the litter so Grace completed
her mothering stint. That was during the winter of 2001 but
unfortunately, Grace died from liver cancer in February 2002.
For those who are interested, there are some interesting stories
amongst this litter's ancestors: Going 7 generations back is a
dog called Oaktrees Irishtocrat, he won best in Show at the New
York Westminster Kennel Club show (the American's equivalent of
Crufts) in 1979.The first and only time an IWS did that.
Great Great Great grandfather, Hudson Chill at Doonbeg was
conceived by artificial insemination in Sweden and was born in
quarantine at Heathrow. He also holds the record as the most
used stud dog ever in the UK, siring 136 UK puppies and at least
5 in Ireland.
Both Irish Field Trial champions from the 1980s are in the
pedigree: Cruiscin of Lisnabrogue and Slipper of Lisnabrogue, as
is one of the best known working IWS from the UK, at least in
recent years, Killountain Trader. He died in his 16th year. His
mother, Maria of Lisnabrogue qualified for the Irish Retriever
Championship by winning an Open Field Trial at Slane Castle.
Another great great great grandparent was the Canadian dog
Lindholme's Mr Michael, bred by George Tabner and owned by Syl
Caditz. George
died just last month. He was a Canadian pilot who fought with a
Canadian contingent attached to the RAF during world war 2.
Lindholme, is the name of the RAF base from where he was based. |
6th November 2009
Day 16 |
Fun and games in the puppy room today as the puppies had their
first go at drinking milk from a dish, or was it early swimming
lessons, it was very difficult to tell which. All but one of the
puppies now weighs more than 1Kg. To aid identification they
have all now got coloured collars on.
The key to the identification for the future gallery photos is
as follows:
There is also now some information on the litter's grandparents,
More info.
|
Collar colour |
Sex |
Weight on day 19 (g) |
| Yellow |
Girl |
1200 |
| Orange |
Girl |
1248 |
| Pink |
Girl |
1016 |
| Dark Red |
Girl |
1063 |
| Blue |
Girl |
1048 |
| Bright Red |
Boy |
1155 |
| Lilac |
Boy |
1072 |
| Green |
Boy |
975 |
| Aqua |
Boy |
1292 |
| Purple |
Boy |
1112 |
| Blue |
Boy |
1134 |
  |
3rd November 2009
Day 16 |
All of the puppies have now opened their eyes (and showing off
their puppy blue colour) and they are just about walking and not
crawling, although it will be a few more days before they are
relatively steady on their feet. The puppies have had two new
experiences: at the weekend they all had their claws clipped and
today they were wormed for the first time with Drontal oral
suspension.
As of last night four of the puppies exceeded 900g in weight
with the heaviest being 958g. They are all putting on weight
steadily.
  |
30th October 2009
Day 12 |
Yesterday girl number 5 became the first of the puppies to open
its eye and this morning both eyes were open. By this evening
some of the other puppies were just starting to open their eyes
and by tomorrow all of them should have their eyes open. The
largest of the puppies are now approaching 800g in weight and
all of them continue to make good progress as far as weight gain
goes.
The litter has now been registered with the Kennel Club and the
pedigree names are given below.
|
Fendrake's Duke of Bedford |
boy |
|
Fendrake's Flash of Dawn |
boy |
|
Fendrake's Magic Master |
boy |
|
Fendrake's Rebellious Liam |
boy |
|
Fendrake's Pocket Rocket |
boy |
|
Fendrake's Misty Rascal |
boy |
|
Fendrake's Gentle Molly |
girl |
|
Fendrake's Misty Morning |
girl |
|
Fendrake's Irish Aoife |
girl |
|
Fendrake's Faithful Tess |
girl |
|
Fendrake's Morning Star |
Girl |
|
27th October 2009
Day 9 |
The puppies have now made it through the first week as healthy
as ever and are still piling on the weight. They have doubled
their birth weight and in the next few days should start to open
their eyes. Some look like it won't be long before they will be
on their paws.
  |
25th October 2009
Day 7 |
The puppies are now making steady progress and
we have now started weighing them daily to keep track of each of
them. On day 4 when they were first weighed the range was from
340g for the smallest girl to 431g for the largest boy. Today
the weight range is between 444g (a boy) and 576g (also a boy).
The smallest of the girls now weighs 450g and the largest 450g.
Meagan is now a lot more relaxed with them and is happy to leave
them for periods of time and is also very relaxed about them
being handled, as seen below with our daughter.
|
21st October 2009
Day 3 |
The puppies have noticeably grown in size and are all
feeding well. Meagan is eating like a horse to try to keep up
with the demands of producing milk for 11 puppies. Only had to
get up at 1.30 in the morning to let Meagan out for the loo, a
significant improvement on the night before.
More photos are now available in the photo gallery. Links are at
the top of this page.
  |
20th October 2009
Day 2 |
All of the puppies had a good night and with the milk bar
now fully switched on they have been making a little less noise.
 
 
|
19th October 2009
Day 1 |
Now we know why Meagan was such a barrel, as she whelped 5
girls and 6 boys. She started at 7.10am and finished at 3.17pm.
All the puppies and Meagan appear to be doing fine.
 
|
| 14th October 2009 |
One of the bedrooms has been converted into a whelping room.
The whelping box has been assembled and Meagan spent her first
night in there. Last year she commandeered the bed of Georgie,
our Ridgeback a few days before whelping and we had a hard
job getting her upstairs. So this year she is sleeping in the
whelping room ahead of whelping.
|
| 11th October 2009 |
 These
photos of Meagan were taken at 7½ weeks. As you can see, with just
1½ weeks to go she has turned into a little barrel.
 |
The
picture is of Feargal and Meagan taken in June 2008 and both can be
seen, together with our other Water Spaniels.