Plotting His Escape

  Baby Blue Boy has discovered that there is a world outside his whelping box and he knows he's missing out on some important action!  He has started throwing himself at the entrance of the box, which has boards to stop him from escaping, hooks his elbows on the top, then wails and cries about missing the fun that is happening just beyond his reach.  I hope he will stay in his box until this week-end when I will have time to get the other room puppy proof.  Aunty Jewel is staying there right now, but she probably won't mind moving into the nursery side.
  Jewel came into season a little sooner than I expected but the timing turned out to be perfect.  We have chosen CH Jag-View It's How You Play as the sire for her litter.  It is a line bred cross and should improve the head qualities where Jewel is lacking.  Both Jewel and Evan have the happy, fun personalities that we like in our collies and nice movement.  Evan is a tri smooth but is rough factored like Jewel so this litter should have both coat types.  We think Jewel is pure sable which will make the puppies sable, but tri factored.
  I tried something a litte different with this breeding.  Both Shannon (Evan's owner) and I had commitments that made it very dicey to get Jewel to Evan.  To better pinpoint the day of breeding and hoping it would coincide when I was off work, I took Jewel to the vet's for cytology exams.  It's not as exact as progesterone, but Jewel seems to have a very small window for breeding and we didn't have time for the vet office to order the progesterone test.  Saturday's test showed that Jewel had started into her fertile period and Dr. Robbins thought Monday would be the optimum breeding day.  What great timing!  I was off work and Shannon was also available to do the breeding.  Jewel and I took off for the four hour drive to Brookneal.  It was an easy drive and the scenery is so pretty through Charlottesville and Lynchburg.  There were a few sprinkles around Lynchburg but the sun came back out in Brookneal.  The breeding went well and we were back on the road by 2:00.  Within half an hour, I hit rain, not too bad a first, then torrential downpours!  I kept thinking of David's trip back from Tennessee with Sadie and hoped this was a good sign that we had another successful breeding.  This litter would be due two weeks after I retire.  Surely, that's another good sign!