Well, I failed at keeping this blog updated, but Emma did have her puppies by Harley – we ended up with five lovely brindle pups, four girls and one boy that we kept here, Potter. More information, weekly pictures, and links to the puppies’ individual pages can be found at the litter page.

When it rains it pours!  Not only have we bred Evie to Abe, we are also breeding Emma to Harley (Faerdorn Dust Buster, Imp UK).  Emma is in Massachusetts as I type this, waiting for the right time to be bred (based on progesterone testing to pinpoint ovulation); we actually tried breeding Emma to Harley in April and missed her, so we’re not taking any chances this time! It is possible that we’ve completely lost our minds, as these litters (should both bitches conceive – knock wood!) will be born only a few weeks apart. However, after some long thought, we decided it would be better to have two litters together and get it all over with at once! Plus, Emma and Evie were pretty much raised together, so there’s a kind of poetic justice in their having their first litters together, too.

This will be a full-UK breeding. While our primary intention with the addition of Emma to our breeding program was to blend the UK lines with the North American lines, we wanted to do a full UK breeding for Emma’s first litter, primarily because we are hoping for a full-UK male of our own. Harley has been a favorite of ours since he first came to this country – in large part due to his being the grandson of one of our all-time favorite bitches (as we’ve noted many times on this site!), Ch. Roamaro’s Scotch Mist of Winuwuk. Harley’s pedigree includes many of the UK Boxer greats, and he has impressive longevity behind him. Emma also has some top (and long-lived) dogs in her pedigree, and we’re hoping that the combination will bring out the best of all of them.

Emma has done reasonably well in the show ring, considering her uncropped ears, "British" look, limited showing, and being primarily owner-handled. We never expected her to excel in the ring, of course, because of these reasons; the ears alone make it a hard road, and being "different" is never easy. (Though really, there are only a few times where we’ve felt the ears have had anything to do with her placement.) She is smaller than most bitches in the ring, and could use just a touch more elegance. She is square, substantial, well-angled, has a gorgeous melting expression, upswept chin, nice tight feet, good width and depth of muzzle, and a beautiful golden-red coat and inky-black mask. Harley is a square, balanced, moderate dog, who has been producing typey puppies with a proper balance of substance and elegance, and fun-loving, easy-going temperaments about which everyone raves. (I administrate an online Boxer forum, BoxerCrazy, and we have a number of Harleypup owners there, so I’m able to get some unsolicited views of what he’s producing.)

Emma and Harley have both had multiple Dopplers, Holters, and thyroid screens (Harley’s results are posted on his web page), and are currently clear of Aortic Stenosis, ARVC, and hypothyroidism. Both of Emma’s Holters (10/07 and 10/08) have shown 0 VPCs. Like Evie, Emma came into season earlier than we expected and so her hips have not been x-rayed; Harley has an OFA preliminary x-ray of Good. Again, for the same reasons as with Evie’s litter, we feel there is a very very low risk that these puppies will develop clinical hip dysplasia. Emma has tested as At Risk for Degenerative Myelopathy; this was in the "news that rocked the world" category, as until her test results came back it was widely believed that they didn’t have DM in Boxers in the UK. Of course, that may still be true – At Risk simply means Emma has two copies of the gene that is linked with DM, it does not mean she will ever develop the condition. If reports from the UK are correct and they do not have DM in their Boxers – and that information comes directly from the Breed Council geneticist, based on his experiences and conversations with veterinary neurologists (and given that Boxers in the UK routinely live into their teens, odds are they would be seeing DM if it were there), we don’t expect Emma will ever show signs of the condition, and thus will be treating her breeding choices just as we would have before the test was available – acknowledging that there is a possibility of producing puppies with DM, and relying on pedigree and ancestry to determine the relative risk of doing so. Fortunately, Harley tested clear of the DM gene, which means that these puppies will all be carriers – they will never develop the condition, but may produce puppies at risk for it, depending on how (if) they are bred. (Our DM page gives more information on what the various results mean, and how we know what the puppies’ status will be.) We do not plan on testing the puppies for DM, since their status is established by their parentage – but we may do some double checking just for "quality control" assurances.