The Native Iowan

It’s a nice morning here in my valley. Sunny, blue skies, still air. The day will be gentle.

My small house-dog, Lady-Godzilla, has just crawled up and snuggled into a spot by my side. My right foot is up on pillows, my ankle is wrapped in a velcro boot. The ankle feels pretty good. I feel healing happening. I’m 15-days into this leg-up lifestyle… only 25-days more to go…

My big dogs are all quiet. The 8 puppies must be happy. They make no noise. They have had the night with their “Dame”. Their bellies should be full.

The Mamma dog is lying in the sunshine by the door. 6month-old. Pepper, is lying in the shade near her. He licks the spot where he used to have testicles. The other 3 “breeders” are in their kennels. No one is fussing. Yet.

As the day heats up they will fuss more. Especially the new-born pups. They are growing, getting teeth and nails. The mamma dog often neglects them until she is damn good and ready to have the 8 little beasts crawl and chew and suck on her. Yesterday we introduced them to powdered milk. A bowl of water mixed with a thick creamy pile of powdered milk. At 2weeks old, they are getting close to solid food. And, as discussed, any help we can give the mamma dog is welcome. A feeding of milk, daily, for now will take a lot of pressure off the mamma. It’s an attempt to “plan for success”.

Ive been around breeding dogs most of my life. Ive seen a lot of pups die young. Ive seen Dames get sick, have mastitis, refuse to nurse their litter. A lot can go wrong. It can be a huge amount of effort to keep a big litter of pups alive. An effort that is rarely successful.

It is a “circle of life” sorta thing… The more you interact with nature, the more you get involved in animal-husbandry, the more you see and touch death.

So we do what we can in a premeditative posture. Keep the mamma healthy is #1. I am not a proponent of hand-feeding, hand raising a big litter like this. My aim is all ways and always to breed and raise the very best canines possible. Nature has to have some say in all of this. My mamma has 8 teats. She just dropped 12 pups. She was dropping pups for at least 12 hours.

As soon as a pup drops we aim to assist by getting the pup on a teat as quickly as possible. A pup has a good chance of survival if it gets to suckling ASAP. Of course it’s kind’a hard when the mamma is dropping pups for more than just a few hours. The longer the deliver process the more chance for the loss of a pup or 2.

As well, all litters have runts, weaklings. Sometimes the first borns are the runts, sometimes the last borns are the weaklings. I can find no definitive pattern.

My dogs normally drop huge litters. This last litter was 12. We’ve had a couple litters of 10. Our biggest was a litter of 16. But Ive never seen a full litter survive. There are always some pups lost in the first few days. Some are just weak. Some get crushed or suffocated by the pack. Some succumb to cold. The trick is to minimise the early mortality rate. Give them a chance of survival, without too much interference.

So we do what we can to support survival of as many as possible. 8 live pups 2weeks after birth, out of 12 born, is pretty average. Pretty darn good.

One thing I see, as I do my morning leg-up review of world events….

Nick Fuentes: “I want Iran to win and the United States to lose”

This is a sad, negative vibe that is not terribly uncommon. People “rooting” for the failure of their society. Sadly, not uncommon.

In this sense “rooting” is a common, positive phrase of encouragement meaning someone is cheering for your success, wishing you well, and firmly on your side.

Thus “rooting for failure” is self-evidently negative. And in my mind quite foolish.

Of course, this young commentator, N Fuentes, is an agitator. An activist. An influencer. He uses shock and awe, and other parlour type prestidigitation tricks, to gain attention. He makes his living by being controversial.

I have written about being proud and patriotic and nationalistic. I have also written about being in opposition to the Government-of-the-day. It’s a fine line to be critical of the Gov, but it is often required. Yet wishing for, rooting for the failure of all that one is critical of… Hmmmm…. I say, Hmmmmm…

Dont make. a lot of sense to me.

Wood, not War is my by-line:

More later