Nellie's, Marian's, and (possibly) Gwynie's 2025 Litters

Nellie and Marian are going to have puppies about a week apart. I have decided to combine their puppy diary. Gwynie may be pregnant, with a due date about four weeks after Marian. If so, I will include her puppies in this diary. Timing will be recorded based upon Nellie's puppies.

Pregnancy

18 Feb 2025
Nellie ("Shaksper Helena Of Nottingham") came into season today and I have decicded to breed her. If Nellie gets pregnant, this will be Nellie's first litter.

20 Feb
Marian ("Shaksper Frances Flute") came into season today and I have decided to breed her. I have raised two nearly simultaneous litters previously. It is a lot of work, but doable. If Marian get pregnant, this will be Marian's first litter. Marian lives with Amy and Tom in Raleigh. If Marian gets pregnant, she will come stay with me for the last two weeks of her confinement and the twelve weeks to raise her puppies.

2 Mar
Nellie was bred today by trans-cervical insemination using frozen semen of the deceased dog Kenny ("Dunbar's Kensington Square") who lived from 2005 to 2022. Kenny, who was owned by Barb Crosby, is a well-known Norwich who during his lifetime earned many ribbons and bred litters on both sides of the Atlantic during the period 2007 to 2011. While Kenny was alive, Barb had Kenny's semen collected and frozen for storage, thinking that Kenny's semen might be useful in the future. Barb approached me two years ago and asked it I would be interested in using some of Kenny's semen. Naturally I said yes, as Kenny's genes would add significant diversity to any puppy produced today. We tried using Kenny's semen last year with one of my girls (Izzy), but no pregnancy resulted. This breeding with Nellie is our second attempt using Kenny's frozen semen. Breeding with frozen semen has a lower success rate than when using fresh semen, as the freezing/thawing cycle damages and kills many sperm. (It is actually thawed semem that is used for an insemination.)

Rather than doing a vaginal artificial insemination with Kenny's semen (think turkey baster), to increase the odds of pregnancy a transcervical insemination (TCI) was done. In a TCI a small hollow rod (an endoscope) is inserted into the vagina and past the cervix. This allows the semen to be deposited directly into the uterus. (Normally semen have to swim through the vagina and the cervix to reach the eggs in the uterus.) The rod has a light and a camera at the tip that lets the veterinarian see on a monitor so that the vet can find and guide the rod past the cervix. This is a specialty procedure, only done by veterinarians board-certified in reproduction (theriogenologists). Normally a dog would need to be under anesthesia during such an endoscopy. It is only because Nellie is in heat and receptive that she allows this while awake.

3 Mar
We tried to do a second TCI on Nellie today, but Nellie fought the procedure, so we stopped. Given that the semen quality upon thawing was not great, we are not optimistic that Nellie will get pregnant.

4-15 Mar
The convention in the dog breeding world is that the girl travels to the boy, although I understand that there is no biological reason for this. Normally I would have driven Marian to her intended, Justin ("Foxwood's Just Having A Blast At Coventry"). I would have left Marian with Dale Martins (of Coventry kennel), and come back and picked Marian up after the deed was done. (Dale would have done several side-by-side vaginal AIs.) However Dale was planning to travel during the expected time period when Marian would need to be bred. So instead of driving Marian to Justin, Dale was kind enough to let me borrow Justin and bring Justin to my house.

I normally do not have intact male dogs in my house when I have girls in season. So having Justin visit involved a certain amount of logistical rearrranging at my house. I built a separate temporary indoor/outdoor run for Justin off the other side of my house. Justin stayed there unless I was able to closely supervise him around my girls. When Justin was with my girls, he made himself a nuisanse with the girls who had recently been in season. (The girls still smelled good.) The girls would tell Justin that they were not interested in his attention. But Justin would just wait a minute and then see if the girl that had caught his eye (or rather his nose) had changed her mind. Towards the end of Justin's visit, things settled down. Justin enjoyed walks in the nearby forest with the rest of my pack. I hope Justin had a good time during his visit. I returned Justin to Dale after he did his duty by Marian.

7, 9 Mar
Amy brought Marian and I brought Justin and we met at NC State. (Marian is on the left, Justin is on the right.) Since I had the boy, I decided to take advantage of NC State's expertise and have the breedings be transcervical inseminations (TCIs). Justin was collected, his semen was evaluated, and then Justin's semen was inserted via TCI into Marian. We did this twice, two days apart.

24 Mar
Gwynie ("Shaksper Gwyneth De Lesseps") came into season today. As I had already bred two of my girls (Nellie and Marian), I initially decided not to breed Gwynie. Two litters of puppies are a lot of work. But there is no guarentee that both Nellie and Marian will get pregnant. And I hate turning people down when I do not have enough puppies for everyone who wants a Norwich. So I have decided to breed Gwynie. If all three girls get pregnant, it will make for an interesting summer!

If Gwynie gets pregnant, this will be Gwynie's third and final litter.

25 Mar
Ultrasound today at NC State University confirmed that Nellie is pregnant, with possibly three puppies. As ultrasound is unreliable for counting puppies, I do not pay much attention to the number ... only to the fact that Nellie is confirmed pregnant. Given the poor quality of the frozen semen, I was really surprised the Nellie got pregnant.

Nellie's due date is estimated to be around 1 May.

31 Mar
Amy reported that Marian did not eat all her breakfast this morning. The rule of thumb for Norwich Terriers is that if they do not eat, then they are either sick or pregnant. So this "morning sickness" is a good sign that Marian may be pregnant.

3 Apr
Ultrasound today at NC State University confirmed that Marian is pregnant. You can definitely see two puppies on the ultrasound screen (the round blobs), but the attending (senior) vet said that there may be four puppies. We will do an x-ray when Marian is closer to her due date to get a better count of the number of puppies, and to decide whether to let Marian try to whelp the puppies naturally (free whelp) or whether Marian should have a cesarean section (c-section).

Marian's due date is estimated to be around 8 May.

5-10 Apr
I took Gwynie and left her with Dale Martins (Coventry kennel). Over several days, Dale bred Gwynie via side-by-side vaginal artificial insemination to Justin ("Foxwood's Just Having A Blast At Coventry"). After which, I picked up Gwynie and brought her home.

Justin is the same sire as I used for Marian. I have used Justin before as a stud dog, and I like the puppies that he produces.

17 Apr
As it is T minus two weeks until Nellie's due date, today I started a three-day regime of worming Nellie with fenbendazole. During pregnancy, a mother's immune system is depressed so that the immune system does not attack the baby (or puppies in Nellie's case). When the immune system is depressed, parasites that are normally kept in check by the immune system can get out of control. So we worm the mother to prevent this.