Dogs & First Kids Of 2019!

We still have a lot of snow, but it's finally melting this week, and going pretty quickly. It's still getting good and hard overnight so we can walk on top of the crust in the morning, but once the sun shines for awhile, everything is all soft, drippy, and muddy. 

The last puppy, Tucker, finally went home on Tuesday, so I'm free! Liz is sad about having to be by herself, but she was way too old to still be with her brother, and had already learned some bad aggression habits, simply because nobody ever told her that there are better ways to solve disputes.

The last two pictures I have with Tucker.

The rest of the pics are all from this morning. I really like my little Lizzy! 

This was the first time I've ever seen Jasper stalk another dog.

Jinger bounced back from having 8 puppies in phenomenal fashion. She even put on a little extra weight, and is "fat" now. 

That left ear still has trouble standing, but is mostly up whenever he starts panting.

Liz was giving some mighty glares at the other dogs too, but this feeble shot is all I was able to capture.

The stream is running pretty good, and water is coming out of both overflow pipes on the pond. 

When we cross the stream, Jinger just wades calmly on through.

Liz hurriedly and unhappily wades through. 

And Jasper: well...

Jasper doesn't really care to get his toes wet. 

On my second day in Finland, Brittany let me know that Flint was extremely ill. She brought him in to the vet the next morning, and he was diagnosed with the dreaded parvo. I tried not to let the stress of it ruin my trip-and think I succeeded-, asked Brittany to revaccinate the rest of the dogs, and prayed that nobody else would get it. My main concern was Liz and Tucker, beings they are so young and not fully vaccinated. The incubation period is typically 7-10 days and we are at 15 days since Flint broke out with it, and no other dogs are showing symptoms. Of course the virus will still be in the environment, probably until the end of summer, when the continued intense heat, sunshine, and drought will likely kill most/all of it off, but if nobody broke out yet, it's likely they have a strong immunity, beings they have all been exposed. 

I got Flint home last Friday, and he has lot a lot of weight and is a bony little dog-the pictures don't show it, for some reason. I don't remember what he weighed before I went to Finland, but my guess is that he lost between 5 and 8 pounds while he was sick. When you're only roughly 30 pounds to begin with, that's a lot of weight. 

He wasn't eating or drinking, and still acting very sick, and I was extremely worried about him for the first couple of days. Now though, he is eating and drinking great, and getting more and more like his old goofy self every day. He's quite anemic because he was pooping out a ton of blood when he was sick, but with some liver added to his diet, he should get his iron back in fair time. He is in isolation until he stops having diarrhea, as I don't care for him to shed more of the disease around the farm. 

Random to the rest of the post, but Annie, who is her mom, Desi's "twin," is my favorite doe kid from last year.

Sonnet had triplets yesterday! Two does and a buck-what a great start to the 2019 kidding season! Eclipse, Minx, and Bluebelle are all due soon as well, but Eclipse is the only one looking like she'll kid in the next few days.

The one on the right is the buck. I can't decide if he's a strangely colored two-tone, or a strangely marking cou blanc.