This week sees a New Year and a new start for 11 Paterson puppies.
Our Chocolate Labrador “Blossom” had a litter of puppies 8 weeks ago and over the next few days, they will be going to their new homes.
Although Blossom is Chocolate, the dog we used does not carry the Chocolate gene and so, as predicted, all the puppies are black. With 5 male pups and 6 female pups we were really pleased with the balance.
Blossom is an experienced mum having had litters of 9 and 8 puppies previously but 11 puppies is a big litter and that posed a challenge for Blossom and the whole Paterson family over Christmas.
At 4 weeks of age, the puppies had grown as had their appetites and with only having 10 teats to feed from, one of the puppies was always missing out so there was a rugby style scrum at each meal time. Although Blossom was coping admirably, we decided that they needed supplementation so started with powdered milk and then moved onto biscuits. They have been solely on biscuits for a couple of weeks now and seem to have perfected the hungry Labrador art of spreading the front legs at the food bowl to make it more difficult for anyone else to get to the food.
For me, the two greatest pleasures of breeding are watching the puppy’s personalities developing and observing the match between the puppy’s personalities and the personalities of their new owners. We have laid-back puppies going to quieter families and outgoing puppies going to energetic households.
As Kennel Club Assured Breeders all of the puppies go off to their new homes with written guidance on puppy care. They will be wormed and microchipped and ready for their first inoculations. The demand for Assured Breeder puppies seems to be very strong with enquiries outnumbering puppies by about 4 to 1 and puppies going as far afield as Edinburgh and Surrey.
We have great homes for the puppies to settle into and wish Poppy 1, Ollie, Poppy2, Willow, Poppy 3, Marla, Bala, Parker, Maximus, Morris, and Foster lots of fun at their new homes. Happy New Year.
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