Twelve years ago I whelped my 11th litter of purebred puppies. My first litter, detailed in a Bee article, was in 1986. But this was the first time I planned a litter with a bitch I had bred and co-owned but who belonged to a family as their beloved pet. Stasha was a beautiful retired champion show dog whose main vice was to jump on the kitchen counter stealing Big Macs that appeared in the house. She was spoiled and she knew it!

Breeder’s Notebook

June 1, 2003, was a rough day for Stasha. I am reminded of this not only through experience, but recently I unearthed my old breeder notebooks. Breeders are like detectives and newspaper reporters. We chronicle clues, note dates and times, and record observations in our notebooks to document everything. Later, years later, we reread them prior to the next litter, to learn from and to improve upon.

Stasha’s earliest due date was June 2, 63 days from the first of her three breedings, all by artificial insemination. I diligently took her temperature looking for that drop that would indicate whelping is near. At 11:30 am on May 31 it had dropped to 99.2 degrees, then her water broke at 4 pm, and soon she was nesting.

Pawing among crumbled old issues of The Bee in the custom-made whelping box. This behavior continued with panting, pacing, spinning, and standing. I stayed up all night to watch. Nearly 12 hours later, at 3:50 am, I could see her contractions and was expecting the first of five puppies to arrive shortly.

An hour passed, no puppies, another hour passed, no puppies, yet another hour passed and still no puppies. It was now 7 am and we were speeding down Route 7 to Norwalk for an emergency C-section.

Mind you, this is not my bitch. She is an Elkhound I whelped and showed and loved, but she was another family’s pet. I was responsible for her well-being and we were rushing to the vet hospital to save not only her life, but the puppies inside her that were somehow being prevented from escaping into life.

As I worked with the vets to get through the whelping, I also managed and calmed the owners that their Stasha — who they had entrusted to stay with me for four months — would be just fine, even though I had no idea of the outcome.

Jinx, Izzy And Colt

According to my notebook, the first two puppies had somehow “hooked together,” and blocked normal passage of the whole litter. Afterward, only the three remaining puppies survived, a boy and two girls. Stasha was saved and became an excellent mother. Jinx, Izzy and Colt arrived at Elvemel in a cardboard box that afternoon.

Two months later, Izzy and Colt went to their new homes and Jinx stayed with us here in Newtown. More heartbreak came with this litter, sadly, when Colt succumbed to osteosarcoma at age 5. It was a devastating time for his family, as they had two young girls who just absolutely adored him. For me to console them was nearly impossible. I tried to explain how dogs today get cancer very often, but it sounded like a lame excuse. We all cried together. Jinx went on to become a champion, have a litter of her own and still graces our couch today, but Izzy also faced tragedy in her family.

Izzy’s owners were repeat customers. They had purchased their first elkhound from Elvemel in 1989. A tall, handsome male named Ozzy who lived a long, happy life with them. But then a few years after Izzy went to live them, I got a call from the owner that her husband had died, young and unexpectedly, from a heart attack. She was struggling to care for this high-energy dog during her grieving process. There was talk of her returning Izzy to me.

Instead, I traveled to her and helped her work though solutions to keep Izzy in her life. Izzy was a reminder of the love of Elkhounds that she shared with her late husband. We worked out a solution with benevolent neighbors who owned a doggie day care facility who took Izzy “on loan” during the days as the facility greeter of sorts. Izzy had found a job that kept her in her home. That was 10 years ago.

As we got ready to celebrate Jinx’s 12th birthday, I began to wonder about Izzy. I had gotten updates over the years, including one of her sprawled out in joy at the doggie day care center, but it had been a few years now since her owner and I spoke. I checked my smartphone for her phone number, but it was not there. I checked Facebook for her, not there either.

Make The Call

Sitting on my desk were my breeder notebooks. I’d recently unearthed them to show a friend who was planning her first litter. In desperation, I flipped through the pages and came upon the 1989 litter. And there is was, her old phone number. But before I picked up the phone, I briefly wept, in case the news was not what I wanted to hear. Then I got the courage to dial.

“Hello?” came a familiar female voice on the other end. “Hi, Is this…?” I asked, even though I recognized her voice immediately. “Yes, it is!” I could tell she was smiling and recognized my voice immediately, too! We burst into happy conversation about Izzy’s birthday, that she had just a few months ago gave up her mascot gig at the doggie day care center.

“She’s doing well and has finally has started to slow down,” she said. We both laughed.

Once though, the condo association issued a cease-and-desist to all dog owners from grooming on a common grassy area. Apparently Izzy had left one too many chunks of white fluff. These days Izzy eat wells, goes for daily walks, and heads upstairs to put herself to bed in the bedroom. We made plans for a litter reunion in a few weeks at Izzy’s ancestral home.

Once again she would be coming home to Elvemel.

Lisa Peterson, lifelong horse lover, equestrian and owner/breeder/handler of Norwegian Elkhounds, has worn many hats as journalist, columnist, blogger and podcast host. She lives in Newtown with her husband and three dogs. Contact Lisa via lisa@lisaunleashed.com or at her blog www.lisaunleashed.com.