3 puppies / 3 black girls
Bloomers happen even in the best kennels. It shouldn’t be like that and responsibility is on the breeder who is supposed to protect young females from unplanned pregnancy. Unfortunately with a mixed pack, cleverness, agility and speed of Italian Greyhounds, it’s not always possible. Trissy was supposed to be mated with our Mazurek, but next year. For this year, in the autumn, after gaining the breeding license, we wanted to mate her with a very titled sport male from Germany. Stephanie, his owner, was waiting impatiently for her dream puppy from this couple, as a payment for the stud. Unfortunately, our IGs had their own plan.
My males don’t live in the kennel, they have their homes where they are loved and cherished by their owners, but sometimes they come and stay with us for some short holiday. This summer our stud male Mazurek came to us in June. I managed to separate the dogs for 13 days, but on the 13th day of heat while I was locking Trissy in her cage, the staple spilled from my fingers. It was a matter of seconds when she jumped out of the cage at lightning speed and ran straight to Mazu. The dogs didn’t manage to clench, because I separated them very quickly. I didn’t know what to think about all this, so I wrote to some trusted breeders from different countries (Sweden, Finland, Lithuania and Germany), with whom I've been in touch for years and we always sincerely share our experience with IGs. Only one of them advised abortion, saying it’s a safe method, others thought differently and told me this method may be dangerous for a first time mother. 3 weeks after I did ultrasound with Trissy and it showed a lack of pregnancy, I really felt relieved! A few weeks later her nipples got bigger and pink, but the belly was still sunken. Around the 40th day the belly got a bit bigger. I thought it was a phantom pregnancy. At day 50 I got really worried with the belly, not even with the pregnancy, but it looked like there was only one, big puppy and cesarean section would be necessary. This time the ultrasound confirmed pregnancy and we saw three beating hearts. I was sure it had to be a mistake, the ultrasound never shows the number of puppies correctly. Trissy’s belly 8 hours before the delivery looked like in the picture below.
I still don’t know where the clever pups hid, maybe under the ribs, away from my sight. The best was yet to come, delivery itself.
June 19th Mazu mated with Trissy, they didn’t clench. I don’t know when was her LH shot, I didn’t check progesterone, because I wasn’t planning the mating. It was difficult to count the date of whelping. I was sure that I had to be ready by August 22nd. On Saturday 21st Trissy ate a huge portion of cooked barf, so I thought it wasn’t the right day and left home for 3 hours to visit my grandma and do some shopping. Females on the whelping day usually don’t want to eat at all. When I came back home and was going upstairs, I heard the squealing of a puppy. With a thumping heart I ran to Trissy’s room and saw a little black girl in the middle of white floor. She was clean and yelled like crazy. I took her to the whelping box and when Trissy came there, she immediately started to give birth to another black girl. I stood there completely stunned, watching young, inexperienced Trissy delivering her puppies, breaking the amnion, biting off the navel cord and eating the placenta. It was the first time I didn’t do anything, just watch.
This is how new litter in Sangue Azzurro kennel came into the world completely unexpectedly. And as the puppies are a surprise, I gave them adequate names: Ilusiona Sangue Azzurro, Impresiana Sangue Azzurro, Iluminaziona Sangue Azurro.
The birth of our girls is reported in our Kennel Club office, it will be on “breeding condition” and I have to take genetic tests for parents and the girls to check the parenthood. Of course all the girls will have pedigrees.
All three girls are as black as coal, no discoloration or warm tones, but the biggest one seems even dark blue-black in comparison with Trissy. It seems to me that her black color is twice as deep and even more intense. When I was planning Trissy–Mazu mating for 2022, I counted the gametes layout to check what colors I can get. It turned out there may be mostly black, one seal and one cream, probably from black female with black nose and eyes, which isn’t surprising, because they have untypical allele layout with both small “e” in E Locus and KB in K Locus. Such mating can give both completely black puppies like in litter I, and precious creams with black noses and eyes. Genetics is fascinating and this litter is the best example of it.
The girls were born August 21st, on Saturday, between 15.30 and 16.20. Birth weights were: 201g, 224g and 207g. Now they are very lively, big and all start to open their eyes. They are visibly healthy, very strong and vital, after a week their coat is shining like black diamond. One of the girls – the smallest and my favorite - has extremely beautiful head and smooth, short hair, the other two have fluffy, thick hair, completely different.
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