Xray Day!

Mac had her xray this morning confirming 4 puppies, and maybe a 5th! Im very pleased that at her age and having her first litter she has such a nice sized litter brewing in her tummy :)

Good job Rivety & Mac!

All the puppies looked to be nice and evenly sized, once i get a digital copy from my clinic i will post the xray here. Note to self for next time: Dont feed momma before xrays. Hahah So not only did we get a nice picture of some lovely little puppies but of mac's breakfast and previous nights supper as well :S

Cant wait to meet the new little ones!

Sitting on the nest...

Mac goes for her xray thursday :) here is a pic of momma mac hanging out in her whelping box. Laying down and looking pretty spread out, she was reluctant to lay on her side and stay put for pictures so I wasnt able to snap a big belly picture this time ;)

The Countdown begins next week!

Mac's puppies are expected as early as next week, we've already felt them kicking away....Poor little mac is as big as a house and is feeling it which makes me think she caught on one of the very early breedings.

The web cam is also now online although it will be off and on while i calibrate it and find a permanent place to set it up..check it out here...

http://www.justin.tv/athillshelties

there is a password required which is: athillnursery

OFA Hip Testing - Fantastic hips run in the family! Images and info

Thought this was interesting and wanted to make available some info about the hip certification that we do with our dogs and some interesting hereditary statistics.

At Athill we have chosen to use OFA to grade the dogs used in our breeding program, to find out more about them you can click here: http://www.offa.org

As some of you might know our dogs are linebred or related to a Blue merle male by the same of Am/Can Ch. Shelgrande Kintara Hi Roller, call name "Gambler", gambler is a son of a very well known sire in sheltie history BISS, BPIS, BPISS AM/CAN/INT'L
CH. WESTPOINTE BACK ALLEY RHAPSODY, ROM- "Jesse".

We are very pleased that two of our "Gambler" relatives have been graded as having excellent conformation of the hip sockets and no evidence of hip dysplasia, one of our girls who recieved an "excellent" rating this year actually was xrayed at age 6 and still her hips looked amazing. I have attached the xray of her hips as i always enjoy when others share their films.

Gambler himself is OFA rated Excellent along with his father Jesse who is also rated Excellent!

At this time there are 6 gambler kids rated as excellent who have been used in breeding programs across canada these kids are:
SHOBNA MASKMAN OF SILVERTHAW
SHOBNA MAJOR
RIDGELYNN SHELGRANDE NEVADA
SILVERTHAW'S MARI MAC
KINTARA'S BELLATRIX
KINTARA'S TEARS IN THE RAIN (PRELIM)

Quest BOB @ Sept '09 show

Im very proud to say that our first home bred champion Quest (Ch. Athill Kintara's Questar) went Best Of Breed on Friday September 18th 2009 over some very nice specials competition.

Thank you judge Phyllis Wolfish for this win, we couldnt be more pleased.

We didnt get any pictures from the show but did get some video which i plan to upload to our youtube account soon :)