D Litter - Born 19th March

We were still in Covid travel restrictions when Lia was ready to go for her 3rd litter, so we went back to Jersey to visit Eiger and Jenny.

The trip over was a lot smoother thank goodness and by then I was allowed on the normal deck which was great as I was able to wonder around the boat and enjoy the trip.

All the Covid jabs had made me quite unwell for a couple of days, so decided to get my second booster upon returning from the trip.....big mistake!

The first couple of days went well, Lia was not ready for Eiger but, they were both pleased to see each other again.

Then I started to feel unwell and yes after a Covid test proved positive, so we needed a plan B for breeding.

Jenny’s husband who supported breeding but was interested in the actual breeding part, stepped into the breach and offered to assist. That evening I talked Jenny what they both needed to do, the place I was stopping had stables so the area was enclosed, just before they arrived I threw Lia out. 20 minutes later I get a call from Jenny to let me know that they had mated and to let her back in. 2 more evenings we went through the same process.

After I had to stayed on the island for another week, fortunately the restrictions had been lifter a little more and was allowed to travel anywhere on the island to go for a walk which was fantastic, I was still not allowed into shops or restaurants but, just to visit the beautiful Island once a day was refreshing. 

4 weeks later at Lia's scan we were told they could see at least 4 puppies.

When the time came she had her first few puppies the evening of 13th March and then the others early hours of 14th March, 4 boys and 2 girls.

Since Dave was so instrumental in the breeding, and I had had Covid, we named the litter after scientist as Dave is a Scientist.  The last boy was called Divoc Dave as a nod to our trip. The Kennel Club did not allow us to use Dave as there was already another dog with that name so we called him Divoc Evad, he had an orange collar and seemed to take the irony of his name and bright collar, so his personality was very funny and quirky.  His owners still keep the orange theme and whenever they visit they wear orange to match him!

The D Litter song was written by Eiger himself with a little help from mum Jenny as she is better at typing, it was titled Oops I did it again!

 Having a litter of 6 is in it's own way easier than having two but, also harder as you have to do a lot more cleaning and like B litter they form an escape committe when you are not looking then as soon as that pup pen door is open they are out. 

One challenge we had was we only had 4 people on our waiting list at the time, we had others on the list but they were not ready, so we advertised on the Kennel Club website.  The responses were slow at first with people enquiring but wanting one next year, after a few weeks we had two perfect pup owners who both wanted a boy which was a relief as both girls were taken.

They all came for the 4 week visit which helps us decide which pup would be suitable for, we knew straight away where Divoc was going and as soon as week 7 arrived for the dog show and his owners drove all the way down from Aberdeenshire wearing orange we knew it was the right thing.

What was also lovely was that Jenny and Dave were able to meet the litter they had been so instrumental in, not something an Entlebucher dad has the luxury of doing.  They bought a special gift for the pup owners, the picture to the right is Eiger and Lia with mini Eiger and Lia.  The lady who knitted them had knitted 6 mini puppies to go in their pup packs.

We had someone who was having a pup who lived really local to us with his teen son, any excuse to come round, at the dog show they ended up staying to watch the Liverpool match I half thought they would be downstairs in the morning cuddling thier pup!