International Champion Ullalvas Smari's pups are now six weeks old (well, officially, as of tomorrow). The pups are amazing, as they should be with a multi-country champion (NORDUCH, SUCH, LUXUCH, DKUCH, NUCH, FINUCH) for a sire and an American Kennel Club (AKC) grand champion for a grandmother. One puppy has already found his new home, soon, hopefully, the other two should as well.
Here are a few photos from this morning. Kit, their mother, is still visiting and nursing them a few times a day, although it might be unusual to nurse for that long, she is an extremely good mother.
It's really hard to get photos of Kappu - perhaps it's because his white head makes it harder for the camera to focus on him or maybe it's because he's always moving. He has an amazing appetite. He's always the first one at the dish when I put it down and the last one to leave it when it's empty. He is the biggest and always has been just like his maternal grandmother Totty. He also is going to have the longest fur in his litter - which explains why his siblings' ears have started to "come up" while his are still down. Technically he's a tricolor chocolate-brown.
When ABBA looks up at me, she melts my heart. She is a real sweetheart, loves to be held and petted. She would rather be held than to actually eat her food. I find that when I feed them I need to step back so that I don't distract ABBA and Watson from their meal. Technically she's a sable chocolate-brown or what I've been calling a tan-shade chocolate. Look at her forelegs - now that's a champion stance if I ever saw one.
Watson, like his namesake, Sir Mark Watson, is a little feisty. He clearly wants to be in control, however, his siblings have other ideas. Both ABBA and Watson have shorter fur which explains, sort of, why their ears are both up now. Perhaps it's the extra weight of the ear fur in longer coated dogs that results in their ears coming up later than it does in the shorter coated dogs. I've seen only one Icelandic Sheepdog with one slightly bent ear and I suspect that was because of an accident during his puppy-hood. All of his pups hade normal upright ears
I've had other "split faces" and the colored side of their faces gradually lost the intensity of the color. Because Watson is also a tricolor chocolate-brown dog like his brother Kappu, the darker brown should stay making for a nice contrast even as an adult. The urge to name him Odin was strong but I resisted in order to honor Mark Watson. Appropriate, imo.
No comments:
Post a Comment