More on the H Litter & Fun Pics

Breeding, like Blackjack, is all about combinations. By itself, the ace of diamonds is nothing special but when combined with the king of diamonds -- well, you have a winner. And like playing cards, breeding involves luck, thought, and a good deck.

Cadi has a lot of strengths -- she is very pretty, sound, smart, etc. and etc. Like all dogs, she is not perfect, and so breeding choices have to be made around both her strengths and limitations. In addition, breeding choices have to be made with an awareness that puppies will need to thrive in a variety of homes -- some experienced and some starting out with a first berner.

Cadi's parents are two of the nicest dogs you would ever want to meet -- I am talking about personality here. But we also know that her dad produces high energy puppies, and Cadi definitely has that super charged personality. I love it and appreciate her enthusiasm for EVERYTHING and EVERYONE, but I also recognize that we probably do not want to create even more amped up puppies :)

I know people expected us to breed Cadi to Montana Mac, but reluctantly we decided that is not the best combination -- but not because of anything bad in either dog! Montana Mac has so many great things -- he is smart, extremely biddable, has a great pedigree with low incidence of cancer and so on -- he will make perfect puppies with girls who are perfect for him -- it is all about combinations and which one is right.

So, Puppy Daddy Choice A has the DM gene so he is not a possibility, generating much sadness as that would have been a loose linebreeding on the Pinnacle's E litter, which included our beloved Abra. Big Bummer on that.

We considered using Zed (from the F Litter) -- although related to Cadi, the inbreeding coefficient is 7.4% (breed average is 18%) so quite reasonable. However, we want to create a little more space between dogs with Lymphoma in the pedigree so decided against that.

We had a back-up boy but Cadi's progesterone is moving slowly and the boy is leaving town! He has not had great success with fresh chilled litters so we wanted to avoid that with him, and since he will not be at home (he lives in another state) we had to thank his wonderful, nice owner and hope we have another chance with them at some point.

UGH.

But another boy has emerged as a serious contender and we are liking him a lot -- and his owner is nice, honest, and articulate, all of which is also required. There is the slight problem of him being in another state and my back being too bad for a long drive but those are just tiny details to work out -- the hardest part is in the picking...

Cadi's progesterone was .3 yesterday -- once it hits 1.0 she will need to be bred four days later so I am thinking Tuesday or Wednesday will be B for Breeding Days; we test again today. I will post info on the Puppy Daddy and the plans soon...

In the meantime, here is Levi enjoying a rare San Francisco bay area snow -- Levi is Asia's littermate (E for East Litter):


And here is Brighton from the D Litter doing her best Elton John imitation -- or maybe Lady GaGa?????


Please think good thoughts for our H Litter -- we have wonderful people waiting and need perfect puppies for all those perfect homes :)