Lia's first litter - Born 27th April 2020

This is our lovely Lia with her first litter Entlebucher Sennehunde, and our second litter. 

Lia was a virgin when we went to Tsjerno and so was he, we travelled early to make sure we got the timing right to get her settled. I contacted Tsjerno’s mum Karolien in Belgium, who is amazing, to let her know we were on our way and when we arrived could we come visit just for Lia to say hello to her new boyfriend and settle. I explained that it was unlikely that anything would happen but useful for her to get to know him. How wrong could I be! 20 minutes after arriving I am sat on the floor holding Lia, next to Tsjerno’s mum and dad ( Steven) holding Tsjerno, it was the strangest experience ever having met these two amazing people just 20 minutes before hand sat shoulder to shoulder. The next day the same happened, the day after neither had any interest so we started our trip home. We managed to get out of Europe in time before the borders closed due to Covid.

We got home and 4 weeks later had her scan to find out she had around 4 puppies. When scanning for a litter vets cannot always be accurate to the number of puppies as some puppies maybe hiding, the purpose of the scan is make sure she has taken and also an idea of size so we can manage what we feed her (see C litter for more details).

Lia is an absolute princess so I was not sure how she would take to motherhood, throughout her pregnancy she just thought she was getting fat and did not know she was pregnant. Billy knew she was pregnant and was not happy about another litter coming along. Annie wanted to help Lia and at 8 weeks tried to prepare Lia for the litter, Lia was appalled when Annie told her black blobs would come out of her personal area and ignored Annie after that conversation.

The evening finally arrived and at 2am out popped Bach Lia’s first born son, she made a small squeal, looked at the black blob in the whelping box, looked at me as if to ask what’s just happened, Annie was outside on the ready just incase Lia did not take to motherhood, I pointed at the pup and said to Lia ‘that’s your puppy’, she then knew straight away and set to work on cleaning Bach and getting his lungs working and that was it, three more pups were born throughout the night, Berlioz, Brahms and Bartok, a girl and two boys, then at 08:40 in the morning 2 ½  hours after Lia had Bartok, she stood up and out popped out our  Bliss, she was just perfect.

As we were only expecting 4 puppies we had contacted just 4 people 3 wanted a boy and 1 wanted a girl which was perfect. We went to the next on the list, they wanted a boy so were prepared to wait, the next on the list were both in the medical profession and although they wanted a puppy could not commit as they were both working long hours due to Covid which was a shame.

Next on the waiting list was a couple I had met at Crufts just a month prior, they wanted an Entlebucher and wanted a boy however, after meeting Lia they said they would have a girl from Lia’s litter. They came to the stand frequently throughout the day staying sometimes for over an hour, they also live very local to us just 30mins away which is local for a rare breed, most people will travel for this breed, we have had puppies go as far south as Jersey and as far north as Aberdeenshire.

I contacted the couple requesting we have a messenger call explaining I know they missed out this time but thought they might want to say hello to this two day old litter. I sat in the pup pen whilst they were sat on their sofa and explained to them that I had lied about the purpose of the call and held out the two girls and said one of these two girls are going to be yours. They ended up having Bliss and as a special thank you they called her Groot, I mean Groot, admittedly it does suit her but I do like to tease them over it at every possible moment I can!

After the pups were about a week old we held a call with all the pup owners and with Tsjerno, and his hooman mum and dad. Everyone met Lia, Tsjerno and the pups, we talked about our dogs and the pups, and the pup owners asked lots of questions it went down really well.

As an assured breeder we have to provide a full pup pack and give gifts to the pup owners from the litter, sometimes it can be one of my slippers that two of the pups would regularly stesl and run off with sometimes it’s BoB, the pup trashed ball pool or some toys, everyone likes a freebie and we get to clear out ready for the next litter!

Tsjerno like his mum and dad has a quirky sense of hufbmour very much like my own and as a special gift he had some face masks made for the pup owners and one for me too!