The big news for this month is that Kyrie has officially entered her first heat! Shiloh shepherds often come into their first heat a little later than smaller breeds, and Kyrie was a perfect example of this, going into heat at 15 months.
Now there are a few things we need to do. In order for Kyrie to pass muster for breeding so she can help in our genepool expansion, we must take her in for her height and weight assessment, we must have her hips x-rayed (and while we do that we will probably also do as many other health tests as possible), and she must pass her Temperament Test. Then all her paperwork must be updated accordingly. So we have a lot to do within the next four to six months if we want to have a chance at Kyrie/Leo puppies at the end of this year or the beginning of next!
So far Kyrie's heat has been no sweat. We bought her two sets of pants (thankfully we were able to find the denim ones so Kyr was not forced to wear a set of hot pink "hot pants") and have been using normal human sanitary pads in them (much cheaper than the ones made for them!). The heat started on the 16th of April. We noticed some blood drips on the floor and Zak made an emergency "pants run"! Now, thirteen days later, her bleeding is tapering off and becoming a straw color, pinkish/light tan. Here is Zak puttin' on the pants while Kyrie is a good girl and stands nicely!
Our boy Leo (you can see his blog here) has been very good during this whole thing! He lays outside of Kyrie's crate and whines a bit, and obviously wants to be with her, but he has been very well-behaved. We'll see if that lasts now that she is entering the "standing heat" period! We have laid pretty good groundwork for this period by spending a lot of individual time with our pups, so they are very used to one of them being in a kennel while the other is out. Since they are so used to it being this way, we have had no problem separating them during this period. They do miss running and playing together, though!!
Below you can see a back shot of Kyr. The sanitary pads we are using are up on the table behind her, if you are wondering what size fits the pants!
Many dogs lose their appetites when there is a bitch in heat nearby, but so far Leo is eating well, though he picks at the food a bit more before eating and it takes him longer to finish. Kyrie's appetite remains good! We have upped her food intake just a little, perhaps 5%, in accordance with the advice in a book recommended to us by Laura Kathryn of Solace Shilohs, one of our awesome ISSR Licensed Breeders. Kyrie is such a Skinny Minnie that I figured the extra calories couldn't hurt too much, even if she doesn't need them with all the changes in her body right now!
Finally, we bought Kyrie a new toy to celebrate. You can see how much she likes it in the following picture:
We hope you enjoyed Kyrie's latest blog update and we'll try to do another post soon!
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