The puppies are doing great!

They were born Saturday March 13 so they are officially two weeks old now. They are just starting to open their eyes and really chunking up!

I’m getting lots of questions about the puppies so I’m going to try and summarize all the fun puppy details (and where they are going!) in this post…

Bitsy is a Great Pyrenees- this breed are known as Livestock Guardian Dogs and she is a working dig at Five Marys. She roams the ranch at night with Beau, our 7 year old male (fixed so no the puppies aren’t his!) Pyrenees protecting our livestock from coyotes, lions, bears and anything else who might try to come on the ranch.

She’s two years old – we got her from a family farm in North Carolina and her owner knee she was special as she was born “en caul” or completely in her sac and breathed from the umbilical cord for a while. Amazing huh!

This was bang Bitsy – she was the cutest puppy.

We knew we wanted to breed Bitsy – and our shop manager Amy has a gorgeous Bernese Mountain dog, Bentley, who she was hoping to breed too. When we noticed Bitsy was in heat, Bentley came over and we expected puppies 57-62 days later!

The morning of March 13, Brian noticed Bitsy wasn’t anywhere to be found in the morning. Usually she and Beau come home for breakfast and to lounge around the driveway until nightfall when they go back on duty.

The girls had been getting a “whelping” area ready in our bottle baby barn for Bitsy to have the puppies. Beau went and found her around lunch and we locked her in the barn with food and water so she wouldn’t wander into the woods to have her puppies… you could tell she was close.

Around 5pm I checked her and she was on the other side of the whelping area we built, but laboring and had two puppies out!!

The girls came running and we watched in awe as she birthed puppy after puppy. Amy rushed over and we all supported Bitsy and the puppies but gave her some space too. Instincts kicked in and Bitsy was mothering and licking the pups off so well. Always impressive to see!

Bitsy had 8 puppies by evening time and the girls brought in chairs and sleeping bags to spend the night in there and take turns checking on the pups and making sure each was nursing well.

Around 9pm Bitsy surprised us with a 9th puppy! Another girl so we were at 7 girls and 2 boys. Then around 10pm, a 10th pup was born but it had some internal organs on the outside of the umbilical opening and was pretty clear it wouldn’t make it. I consulted a vet and she agreed so we just kept it warm and loved until it died.

A week later, one of the males sadly died too. We think he had been at the bottom of a puppy pile which van happen with bigger litters like this one.

So we have 8 heathy chubby puppies. 7 females and only 1 male!

The girls named them :

Boone, Birdie, Bridget, Brisby, Becky, Banjo and Brindle and Billie. All subject to change of course!

We plan to keep one puppy on the ranch – but we won’t pick until they get a bit older!

The other 7 puppies are all spoken for locally or to family and will go to great homes with lots of room to run.

We are feeding Bitsy a high protein and high calcium diet with Five Marys beef and cottage cheese and the puppies will get a blended mix of food soon too.

Bitsy and Bentley are both smaller frame size dogs for their breeds (75-90 pounds) so we don’t expect these pups to be huge but who knows!

Right now they are growing so well and we are all excited to see their little personalities come out.

Stay tuned for lots more pup pictures and videos!!