February 2022 – Sonya Lira Photography

Cricket had about 20 hours of labor.

Jeanelle came in from Livingston to help me she knew I would be panicking and trust me I was.

There was a lot of panting, heavy breathing, teeth chattering and shaking. First labors are never easy and a big litter can be tough on the mom.

She started having pups around 10:30 a.m. yesterday morning and did not finish until about 12:00 p.m.

The first 4 pups came in 2 hours then she started stretching out the time between them from her exhaustion of the long labor.

She even had some good snoring naps and delivered pups while sleeping.

We ended up with 14 puppies, 3 were stillborn and the 4th faded on the first day. We have 10 healthy puppies right now. I am hoping there are no new pups that popped up in the night.

We were grabbing pups and making sure the sack comes off quickly so they can breathe and then making sure she cleans them then drying and rubbing them to get them going it was quite exhausting. After all that you have to make sure they start sucking. It is quite overwhelming.

The picture I am sharing Jeanelle got with her cell phone I will try and get some pics today of everyone.

She would have a girl then a boy and kept alternating this part was too funny. There are a mixture of Formantinos like dad and Brindle like Cricket. Today I will get an accurate count since we need to do weights anyway then collar them with soft color collars.

This Formantino male pup was determined to snuggle at one point under her ear Jeanelle got a picture of that too.

There are new puppies at our house and Crickets pups can make some noise!

Cricket has decided to blossom and I do mean twice the size of the last pictures.

Everything is ready to go including the nanny cam.

She is carrying the pups deep from her back to her belly. That is one big belly.

We have had a lot of heavy breathing going on the last week they are running out of room. Jeanelle thinks there is 12 plus puppies. I HOPE NOT!

She is MUCH bigger than the pictures show I can not seem to get a good angle to show her true size.

Our daughter and family moved to the Livingston area last year and it is about a 2-hour drive between us.

Our 4 grandkids were used to coming over several times a week but that has now changed.

To make up for this with the kids we normally do 3 – 5 days here at a time.

This time when they got here I had 4 jars filled with different candy like a candy store and they loved it.

The girls help Jeanelle a lot feeding the cows, pigs, chickens, dogs, etc. They are quite anxious to get their gardens going and plant some flowers for the bees. David has one beehive but plans to get more.

The kids came in this past week and we crafted and made bookmarks, they drew quite a bit. Andrew did model cars with Pappy. The girls and I made bread they loved doing that and watching the mixer knead the dough. The boys made chocolate chip cookies with Pappy.

Adrian did a lot of giggling and this is very contagious when you hear him giggle.

They just bought a Polaris 6 seater for trucking through the woods and driving on the roads around them. They are always going on the trails exploring. They had to get on a waiting list for the 6 seaters and that was about 4 months of waiting.

They went home yesterday with a loaf of bread and 3-gallon zip locks of chocolate chip cookies.

We always have fun and they entertain us as much as we entertain them. We always look forward to their next visit.

Cricket is 2 years old today and a very healthy Cane Corso also known as an Italian Mastiff.

She should be having puppies at the end of February.

This is her first litter and since we did not do an ultrasound we have no idea if there are 2 or 12 puppies.

There is a waiting list for her puppies and two people have already put down deposits and a third one will soon.

We have upped her food once and will be upping it again this week so we have healthy plump puppies. I even switched her food to Victor Professional I just put everyone on the same food.

Jack has been busy building her a mansion shed that will include a concrete floor two windows and a door. There will of course be a heat lamp for the puppies. He even fixed the floor so it drains to one corner and I can wash it out once the puppies are here to keep everything nice and clean.

I have to pick up some cheap blankets for the delivery and order some welping pads to keep the pups comfy.

Do not let her size fool you she has been very needy lately so I think she knows what’s going on.

There will be pics when the puppies arrive. Just look at that face!

Month: February 2022

Crickets pups

Cricket swallowed a watermelon

Spending time with the grandkids

Cricket turns 2