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Below, is some fact checking from Keith Olbermann. It is great when Keith is doing his thing. But, whenever I have to listen to Bush spout his obfuscated lies, I feel sick inside.
This is Daisy, a darling girl from South Wales. Her favorite pastime is swimming, of course, as you can see here.
Daisy’s dad, Graham Morgan, an excellent photographer and Golden pal who just took 1st prize in our Through Their Eyes (Celebration of Life) Photo Contest, is now anxiously waiting (any hour now) for Daisy to deliver a large litter of sweet puppers.
Here are some of Graham’s observations from 4 days ago:
Having had a few litters here now I still find it fascinating to watch the mums behaviour before and after the births. Daisy, who’s pups are due this Sunday. She had a scan last night and, paws crossed, the first in line pup is only about an inch away from appearing which could mean they may well appear before Sunday. BUT, the lady who does the scanning (she’s brilliant) said that Goldens were notorious in ‘dragging’ out their whelping to the final day … drama queens lol.
Anyway, when we’re out on a walk Daisy, at this late stage, deliberately keeps out of the way of the others just in case her pups get ‘bumped’, and when I let them out first thing in the morning Daisy goes in her basket until the big rush to get out is over, again her way of protecting her unborn puppies. This calmness from Daisy is VERY uncharacteristic of her as she’s usually the first to lunge into the garden lol.
In these last few days we look for signs that the birth is imminent, one of which is digging the garden, which she did this afternoon, presumably where in the wild they would create a shallow trench for her and her pups and also, we’ve been told, why she tries to eat all the afterbirths where she gets all the nutrition she needs to last for the first 3 weeks, when she’s unable to leave her pups. The very last sign is where she ‘goes off her food’ and that means that she will be giving birth in the next 24 hours, and we know that to be correct on every litter we’ve had.
Anyway enough of me ramblings.
I heard from Graham 2 days ago and got this update
Daisy has 2 days to go before the planned(?) date of 6/4/08. She started digging up the garden with a vengeance today so not long to go now. The big sign that there’s only 24 hours left is that she stops eating her food, but she did eat it all this evening (6 hours ahead so it is almost 10pm in Wales now).
This afternoon I finished constructing her whelping box (made out of melamine boards). Here’s a few pics I took of her showing how LARGE she is now lol.
April 7th Update
Daisy went through yesterday without a sniff of a litter (I slept on the settee last night – on stand by!) BUT, this morning she refused her food – so fingers/paws crossed she’ll start today in daylight hours (fat chance lol).
April 10th Update
Phew! Sorry about the delay but it’s been a bit fraught here! Firstly, Daisy is fine (which is the main thing) and the rest of the crowd, 5 boys and 5 girls, are okay too (fingers/paws crossed because generally if puppies get through the first week then they should be okay). The weights born averaged out to around 15 oz. each puppy, times10, of course.
The problem was that we were told that by looking at the scan it was thought that the due date for the pups was last Sunday, but working back from the date of mating then the due date was Wednesday of this week and that was the very day they were born! The first (boy) made an appearance at 6am and the last was at 10.30am – so she wasn’t hanging about – good old Daisy!
As soon as I can catch my breath (been on 24 hour standby since Sunday and not a lot of sleep zzzzz) I’ll take a few pics of the 10 survivors. One pup was born dead 5 hours after the last was born, so that wasn’t very nice. But it’s generally thought that the larger the litter the bigger chance of fatalities.
Not planning on keeping a puppy from this litter. The dad is called Oliver, superb temperament, will hopefully send a pic of him onto you soon.
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