Poor mama went to the groomer today for her pre-birth shave-down. She looks pretty funny right now and is "all belly". If she could speak English, I am sure she'd bemoan all my pregnancy comments and probably secretly snarks at me when I'm away from the house. But I bet she appreciates relief from the heat of carrying a full fleece coat in this Indian summer.

I've set up blog pages for all the pending pups and will auto-feed them out to Facebook when the time comes. Check out our facebook page to get updates in your feed!

Although it is a little early, we have retrieved the stethoscope and have begun listening for tiny heartbeats on the tummy of our sweet girl. Around 25 to 35 days of pregnancy, a skilled ear can hear the tiny tick-tick-tick of puppy heartbeats, and soon there after the puppies can be palpated from outside the abdomen in their individual gestational sacs.  Hearing the heartbeat for the 1st time is so exciting! Some breeders claim that they can count a number of females and males in a  litter by the differences in the individual heart rates, but of course ultrasound and x-ray confirmation of pregnancy is the best way to determine the litter size.