Callisae Longhaired Weimaraners

Having watched Callie's first litter develop into lovely young adults with super temperaments, we decided to repeat the mating between Callie and Flynn.

Once again Callie just got on with her pregnancy and an early scan showed at least four puppies. Her second scan showed strong heartbeats with no puppy appearing excessively large.

By May 19th it was obvious the whelping was imminent and she had a very restless night, having her first big contraction at 2.45am on May 20th - Ava's tenth birthday! The first puppy was some time appearing and just as I was telephoning the vet, tiny back feet appeared! This was a boy weighing in at 11.5 ounces. Callie delivered seven healthy puppies in the space of 3 hours 25 minutes.

At the time we thought she had finished at six pups, and as the only bitch was promised to Paul Read in Canada, it looked like we would have to keep a dog. However, almost an hour after number six, another bitch was born which just had to be Della.

All the pups grew well and we followed the same socialising programme as with the first litter, adding in a fun assault course. This litter were a confident little lot and we had no trouble finding lovely homes apart from for one boy, who we christened Billy No Mates!

Sadly, Callie developed serious tail damage through far too much wagging and after trying everything to get it to heal, we had to make the decision to have her tail docked by about a third. She coped well and the puppies seemed to 'know' they had to be very careful round their Mum.

Liu jetted off to Canada just before she was 12 weeks old, coping extremely well with her long flight and now lives a life of riley in Niagara on the Lake. Kaiser, Merlin, Harley, Billy and another Kaiser send us regular updates and plenty of photos.

Billy eventually found his home after bumping into Harley's owners in Louth. Looks like he might well be jetting off to Australia in 2009.