I had initially been scouting out breeders in Maine as potential mates for a summer breeding, expecting her to come into heat anytime between mid-June and mid-July – and hoping it would be more the latter. But when Laolao phoned me before the kids and I even left home to say that Mo had started spotting, I knew first, that my desire had not been granted and, second, that I had to rethink.
While Maine is about halfway between the east coast and home, the timing of this occurrence meant that the breeding would have to occur right around the beginning of July, before we planned to visit PEI. Heading to Maine would have required us to spend a huge amount of time on the road – first to get there, then to backtrack to PEI, then to head west again. It would have effectively hijacked our holiday plans.
But then, as I was browsing through some old e-mails in my doodle breeder site, I came across a breeder in Nova Scotia that I’d forgotten about. She isn’t a member of the same association as me, so I hadn’t come across her in my search of their breeding stock listing. But that e-mail jogged my memory, and upon visiting her website I realized she had a beautiful lavender-coloured stud, miniature size, direct from Australia, who had the potential to be a good match. So I checked in with her, got Ranger’s pedigree, determined they were a good match (inbreeding is always a concern, so one has to check blood-lines as far back as possible), and we made arrangements.
So, once we arrived in Liverpool, after eating, dumping sewage, and picking up a few groceries, we headed out of town to Labradoodles by Design. We arrived at Ranger’s home in the early evening and made introductions all around. LBD had two litters of puppies – 15 left in all! – that were about to head to new homes. We all met them – a bunch of chocolate lovelies! – and the kids got to spend some time playing with them.
Besides their four females, LBD has one medium-sized young male, not ready yet for breeding, plus Ranger, who turned out to be even a bit smaller than MoMo. His colouring is beautiful – he started out chocolate when born, but has faded into a lovely “lavender” colour. Personally I’d call it more café-au-lait, but the term café is reserved for a slightly different shade, so lavender it is.
We attempted a mating that evening but, while Ranger was interested, Mo wasn’t willing, so we arranged to meet again in the morning for another attempt, and headed to a campground for the night.
At the campground we made a fire and roasted marshmallows for the first time this trip. As we were roasting, Mustang suddenly looked up and cried out “Deer!” Indeed, there was a deer not more than 10m from us, plain as day, watching us from the bushes. Mustang said MoMo alerted her to the deer – she looked at MoMo and saw that she was staring into the bushes with ears perked, so Mustang looked to see what Mo was looking at and voilà!
The next day’s attempted morning mating was equally unsuccessful. We figured maybe MoMo just wasn’t quite at the peak of her heat and once she reached it she’d become receptive. I’d had her progesterone levels tested in Halifax and we finally got results later that afternoon, indicating that yes, she would be at optimal breeding levels from Wednesday to Friday. This was Wednesday.
So we made plans to meet up again in the evening and then headed up the coast to a beach LBD had recommended to us. The kids played, found jellyfish, we sunbathed, and generally had lots of fun.
That evening, back at the ranch, the third attempted breeding again was unsuccessful. Mo started out snappish, not wanting Ranger’s attentions at all. He did mount her and breed, though they didn’t “tie.”
Then, lo and behold, once Ranger was off and spent with the effort (!) Mo suddently got interested! She sniffed at him playfully, “flagged” (presented her backside with tail averted) and tried to get him engaged. But he had had it – he wasn’t up to another attempt! So we took MoMo back to the bus for the night, which we spent in the country driveway – but with lifted spirits as now it looked as though Mo would accept Ranger’s advances the next time.
And indeed she did! Thursday morning – which happened to be Canada Day – the two romped together playfully before getting down to business and a successful tie.
During the day, LBD took the kids and me down the coast to one of her favourite beaches, with two of her dogs and Ranger. We left MoMo with Laolao and Laoye, to give the two lovers a chance to pine. The dogs played in the water and so kid the kids, and we feasted on fish & chips & ice cream.
We achieved a second successful tie that evening, and resolved to give it one more go early the next morning – I usually have to pee around 5:30 so I’d get up then and take MoMo down to the house, and then we’d hit the road.
That we did, and crossed our fingers that the successful matings would, indeed, produce a litter of beautiful chocolate, black, gold and red puppies!! (Stay tuned…)
