Puppies and Roi, the Nanny.

Thinking I would have time to take another puppy on, I set out to find a sire for my Hungarian Wirehaired Vizsla. It wasn’t too difficult, but I had to drive from the North of Scotland to Lancashire for the mating in the middle of January, and so I did.

With everything progressing to plan, Smeagol carried on her life as a hard-working pointer with next to no sign of her pregnancy. Only after five weeks she started to “show” a bit and when we had the scan done, we knew that there would be around six puppies in there.

I should mention that I also have a castrated English Setter, Roi, who is Smeagol’s BEST friend.

Once the delivery started, I wasn’t prepared for just how caring Roi was and how incredibly accepting Smeagol was of his presence. In the photo below Smeagol has only given birth to the first two puppies and Roi is mesmerised watching from outside the whelping box.

By the time I was in the whelping box with Smeagol waiting for the last puppy, Roi was difficult to keep out, so we were all in there together. Smeagol not bothered at all.

As the pups dried up and started suckling, the cleaning job started and Roi was behaving like the best nanny ever, cleaning the pups as much as Smeagol did.

As the weeks went by and the pups started walking they became even more interesting to Roi. I would say that once they were on solid food Smeagol slowly started to lose a bit of interest, but Roi still loved them. He helped them and played with them according to their ability. Every evening they had the run of the house and both big dogs took care of them.

Pups are hard work, but fortunately the weather was very good for weeks when the pups were starting to climb out of their whelping box pen. I have had German Wirehaired Pointer pups before, but these Vizslas were mad at excaping the pen. During the last week they all escaped during the night and I was greeted with a total toilet mess all over my floor.

Anyway, it didn’t really matter. On the day they all left I was on my hands and knees washing that floor.

By the time the pups were coming up to 8 weeks they were able to play Tug of War with a sock with Roi.

What a great dog Roi is. A real gem.