Lakota Retrievers

10/10/2024

Breeze

07/30/2024

This is an old article I wrote about one of our very first litters.

Apparently the stork has keys to our house.

Ember our Toller was due to whelp her puppies either Wednesday or today, depending on which breeding took. Nothing happened on Wednesday, and yesterday morning everything seemed normal. She wasn't nesting and her temperature had not dropped. Her first litter was three days late, so we were preparing ourselves for the same delay with this litter. We had kept track of her temperature and her behavior. After consulting with a few more-experienced breeders, we determined we had a while before she would deliver her puppies.
She was in a playful mood, and was begging me to play fetch with her.

We determined that Karri could go to work and I could go off and train for a few hours. It was a beautiful day with the temps in the low 70's and a nice breeze. All the windows in the house were wide open with some fans blowing.

I put Ember in her whelping room (my office converted) and put up the baby gate to keep her in.
After a few hours of training, I came home. As I pulled into the driveway, I could hear Ember barking her usual "welcome home" cheer. But she was in the front living room, and I did not think twice about it. She is an agility dog, and she could clear the baby gate if she really wanted. When I walked into the house, Ember greeted me with her normal excitement. I went to let her out to potty. As I looked at her in the back yard, it suddenly occurred to me, "Oh my GOD, she is skinny!" I immediately ran outside, called her to me and put my hands on her. "She had delivered her
puppies!!!!" I ran into the house franticly looking for the puppies, and I
could not find them anywhere. But the house sure smelled like she had them.

I finally got the idea to let Ember back into the house and figured that she would lead me to them. Yes, I know it should have been the obvious thought, but I was not thinking at the time. None of this was immediately sinking in.

I let her in, and she went running into our room and jumped on our bed. She sat up there all proud and gave me a "look what I did" grin. I still didn't see anything, and finally said to her "Where are they?" Still nothing.
"Ember, where are your puppies?" She nudged her head under a pillow. I lifted the pillow and there were six perfectly healthy and clean puppies.
They were all lined up in a perfect in a row - warm, content, and sleeping away.

At this point I just had to sit on the edge of the bed and take a deep breath. I called Karri at work to tell her what I discovered, and she thought I was joking. I was finally able to convince her that I was not pulling her leg when I told her, "We need a new mattress!" Karri immediately rushed home, trying her best to avoid getting a speeding ticket and maneuvering afternoon rush hour in Chicago.

Ember did a great job cleaning up after herself. There were no obvious signs of anything. We had dark sheets on the bed, so the blood stains were hidden pretty well. After she heard the whole story, Karri teased me that, "at least she did it on your side of the bed." The mattress and mattress pad are ruined, but we have a healthy little girl and six strong, healthy puppies - three boys and three girls.

Ember has always been an independent little girl, and yesterday she reminded us of that. She also reminded us of the amazing power of nature.

07/16/2024

Fire with her mark.

06/01/2024

Cleaning some of the field to make an airing yard.

02/07/2024

Email issues, I have been having bad e-mail issues for awhile now. I have not gotten any e-mails for about 10 days now on my [email protected] account. It should be fixed, if you have e-mail me and I did not respond please send it again. Thanks

01/22/2024

AVAILABLE ADULT TOLLER!! We are making the tough decision to make "Tricky" available, so someone is going to get a great dog! She is 24 months old, obedience trained, force fetched, e collar conditioned, crate trained, well traveled, doing pike work. She just doesn't have the drive or work ethic that's a fit for our program. She has high energy and we think she will do well in an active only dog home. She is good around kids amf has been good with other dogs. She is not being placed as a hunting dog. Let us know if you'd like to submit an application.

12/01/2023

A few of the dogs out training today.

12/01/2023

Tricky with her mark

11/03/2023

Willie in for some basic gun dog training.

11/03/2023

Willie and his daughter Tricky. It is hard to tell them apart. Tricky has a black collar on. Willie is 10+ years and Tricky is not 2 yet.

09/30/2023

Sonny with his mark, in the Texas heat.

06/15/2023

Getting some Tolling in.

06/09/2023

Poppy with her mark

06/04/2023

Willie with one of his birds.

03/07/2023

Serean with her marks. She loves to retrieve and it shows.

02/07/2023

Wayne with his marks

01/22/2023

Salt and Willie with their birds while training.

dog

01/05/2023

Always interesting

12/03/2022

Willie on an upland hunt.

11/30/2022

Some fun upland training today.

10/28/2022

10/26/2022

Salt with he mark

10/26/2022

Running a few sight blinds to work on cheating the shore.

10/23/2022

Captain saying dad, just throw the bumber.

09/29/2022

Getting it done.