Rain Mountain Legacy Litter May, 2005

May 19, 2005
The Rain Mountain Legacy Litter
UWP Grand Ch. PR Rain Mountain Tonasket Thunder CGC HCT
x Grand Ch. PR Rain Mountain Kutaan Taaku of Bear Creek

	Taaku is not a big Chinook. At 2 1/2 years old and in running shape, she weighs only 52 pounds. But with her first pregnancy, she got huge. There were some complications causing her to require a c-section but I'm very pleased with the litter of three robust pups. Despite still missing Thunder every single day, he definitely lives on through this last litter of his children. Mary has his broad skull and big Dan looks very much like Thunder did himself at this age. But Chinook pups can change so much that who knows which pup will look like which parent when they are even just eight weeks old. Click Here for Pedigree of the Rain Mountain Legacy Litter Note: I'm told I have an error a few generations back in this pedigree and will investigate and fix any errors once I have time to go back and correct the database I use for generating the pedigrees used throughout this website. I am very fallable when it comes to data entry. Whenever you need to have an official pedigree, please consider the UKC to be the source of correct information. If you have any questions on any of the dogs in the pedigree, please contact me directly.
Taaku and the babies at 2 days old.	Left to Right: Mary, Alan, Big Dan.	Top is Big Dan: squished in the middle, Mary; Head hanging down, Alan.
Mary is the only girl and as is typical with Chinook litters, she seems to have the most going on in her little brain. First to open her eyes, she looks the most like Taaku did at this age, with heavy black markings and a lot of black in her body coat.	Alan is showing signs already of having an independant streak. He and Mary seem to trade who is bigger almost every day. There is no question that Alan is going to be a smart guy.	Big Dan looks the most like his dad Thunder did at this age. Like his name says, he's the biggest of the three but already shows signs of being laid back and a touch lazy. His head is quite massive and he will never miss a meal. I think his black mask will fade and he'll end up a palomino color, gold with a lot of cream highlights.

June 14th Update:
The photos below were all taken in the whelping box (a child's plastic swimming pool) but the pups' big event today was moving out of the whelping room (usually known as the guest room) and their swimming pool into the kitchen where their main home will be a big x-pen. This lets them start learning about all the sounds, sights, and smells of daily life. In addition to nursing, they are now eating Puppy Mush three times a day. The recipe is one that has slowly shifted from straight formula (Esbilac Milk Replacer for Dogs mixed with goats' milk and a bit of yogurt) to gradual additions of rice baby cereal, a little baby meat, and slowly more and more puppy formula kibble (right now Pro Plan Puppy though they will soon shift to Pro Plan Large Breed Puppy by the time they are completely weaned). They will probably nurse at least a couple times a day as long as Taaku will let them get away with it. Most pups will at least try to nurse until they leave home at eight weeks.

12 Days Old -- Dinner courtesy of Mom	Alan not only dines while lying on his back but gets his privates washed at the same time. Talk about multi-tasking!	A near tangle of puppies.
How many puppies can you count?	Alan on the left, Big Dan in the middle, and Mary on the right.	Big Dan falls asleep without loosing his spot.

15 Days Old -- Alan		Alan's Mick Jagger imitation
15 Days Old -- Mary		Mary tells us a sad story.
15 Days Old -- Big Dan		There's no denying that Big Dan is quite the teddy bear.
24 Days Old (photos courtesy of Scott Hussey)
Left to Right: Alan, Mary, and Big Dan.	Mary and Big Dan.	Alan (left) and Mary (licking her chops) have very similar coloring and are close in size but Alan's weight is all in his tummy. The day these photos were taken, Alan weighed 4 pounds, 10 ounces, Mary 4 pounds 8 ounces, and Big Dan 5 pounds 4 ounces.
Mary frequently uses Big Dan as a pillow. Big Dan looks more and more like his dad every day.	Alan shows off his fat tummy and messy eating habits. In every litter there is one pup who is a food-aholic and in this one, it's Alan. He eats until he's full, cries because his tummy is too full, finally burps, then goes back for more.