The Hungarian Vizsla Puppies Have Arrived ( All 13 of them)

  Well the long awaited event has finally arrived "Meg" (Bicton Bear it All ) went into unexpected early labour on Tuesday night.

She did not give us any warning, and in fact she was lying on her bed with all the other Vizsla's when the first one appeared.

This first puppy, a boy, came backwards it was not too difficult to ease him out.

                                                    

                                                      We moved "Meg" into her bed in the kitchen and she continued her endeavours, and easily produced several more puppies. Then we waited nearly two hours for the next one to arrive, the reason for this long delay was that this puppy was stillborn.(In many years of breeding this is the first still born puppy that I have ever seen) 

After this, the puppies came quite quickly and naturally, sadly, we had another long wait until another still born arrived.

Lucia and I sustained ourselves with endless cups of coffee, we had a struggle to keep the puppies warm, so when Meg was busy producing babies we were drying them for her, she could not complete the drying before another one popped out.

Well, after a long and worrying night finally at 6am the last puppy arrived .Our courageous lady had produced thirteen puppies, the eleven that survived were 5 girls and 6 boys, no wonder they came early, she could not contain that many any longer.

As each puppy arrived, we recorded the time that it was born and its weight, unbelievably they were all of normal size and a good weight, most of them weighed nearly 400 grams which is heavier than her previous litter of puppies!

All the babies are thriving and gaining weight rapidly, we offered them supplementary milk, but they did not seem to want it at present. She is a wonderful mum, she looks very well, she is content, and she is very proud of her offspring.                                                  

                      

Now it is time to mention the humans in this saga, Lucia has not been to bed for two nights, she helped me with the births, then last night she sat beside their bed maintaining a vigil to make sure that they were all drinking properly. She has refused to go to bed during the daytime, as I write this she is mowing the lawns!

I can admit that I am totally exhausted even though I did manage to sleep last night, it must be something to do with my age!

Puppies Growing Up

Owing to the wonderful weather during the past few weeks,I have been in the air ,teaching  flying more than I have been on the ground ,therefore it has been rather difficult to find sufficient time to write an article about the puppies.

Today it is raining so here I am at my computer sending you  some news of 

the puppies.

Teddy Bear

First a huge thank you to all the people who have sent news and photographs  of your puppies , it is so nice to hear that they all are happy with their new families.

Of the ten puppies, one has gone to Spain, one has been sold to a French couple and all of the others have gone to English people living permanentely in France.

"Toby "has joined his "uncle" from our previous litter of March 2008 and  according to his owners he is already trying  to be the boss over "Darcy".

Darcy & Meg

I have kept one of the male puppies and he is named "Edward Bear of Nearly Heaven" of corse he is our 'Teddy Bear'

Every morning and night I try to spend some time training him , he is very intelligent and he now comes to call, sits, and he will stay for a short time.

Each morning  I put all of the dogs food bowls on the floor and then I give the command NO and they wait patiently until they receive the command OK.Teddy  copied the older Vizsla's and learned this command immediately.

Our Vizsla's adore swimming , I take them everyday to our neighbours lake and they really enjoy the swimming, frog catching,  fishing and in the case of "Teddy" leaping on top of his mother while she is swimming and trying to drown her !

The Vizsla breed are easy to train as they  wish to please people, however they easily get bored therefore it is very important to introduce training as a playtime , little and often is the rule, never make training  into a battle of wills or your puppy will just switch off and refuse to be amenable. 

Many people are puzzled by the Vizsla breed always wanting to jump up to greet people, this is very much an inherited trait but do persevere and encourage your puppy to greet people from the sit position be firm and only acknowledge him when he is sitting eventually he will get the message and you will be proud to let him greet all your friends. Finally No must always mean NO .

  Happy puppy days!