~ The Kiva Legacy Litter ~
Our March 2024 litter would be a repeat mating between TabanyaRuu Xuvi Teemu and Lumikoira Sanaleikki Kassi.
Repeat matings aren't the norm, however when a previous litter was small in numbers but produced good examples, a second bite of the cherry can be a good thing.
You can find out more about the River Litter here.
This page will have information about the Kiva Legacy Litter, we hope you find it interesting.
This page, as with the litter itself, is work in progress and will be updated regularly with photos and news, however we are also writing a blog about it and it can be seen here
If you follow us on social media or own a Lumikoira pup, you will know that we like to theme our litters, and this 2024 litter will be no different. We always knew that this would be a "Kiva" litter, and would be one to honour her and remember her - because without Kiva this litter would never have come to be.
Louise has come up with some lovely couplets incorporating Kiva, a few of them are "Kiva's Memory" "Kiva's Whisper" "Kiva's Joy" "Kiva's Love", etc. A kennel is only allowed to registered name of 24 letters or less - and Finnish being the complicated language it is it may make it difficult to come up with suitable translatable names. But hey, that's the least of our worries as right now we are concentrating on raising a healthy and well socialised litter.
Come back soon for more news and photos.
The litter was born on Thursday March 14th (day 57), several days early as it was due on or around March 17th (day 62) and you can read more about the first few days of the litter here
Over the course of two and a half hours Kassi delivered a litter of 6 pups, 3 boys and 3 girls (MMFFFM) - this was a huge surprise to us as Kassi had only been scanned for 3, maybe 4 pups.
We needed to theme the litter, as we always do, and the only group of 3 males and 3 females we could come up with was the characters in Friends, so Chandler, Ross, Rachel. Phoebe and Joey they would be.
Unfortunately things didn't go that well overnight as Kassi was sick a number of times and then developed a case of the runs - this meant that the pups weren't able to get the essential early hours nourishment they is needed. We were able to get Kassi seen to by our vet and as a result of this Kassi began to produce more milk on the Sunday and the pups began to thrive - well 5 of them did.
Sadly Phoebe wasn't doing as well as her siblings and despite our best endeavours she slipped away on Wednesday, she was just 6 days old :-( she was joined on Saturday by her sister Monica who, like Phoebe, was too weak to survive, she was just 9 days old :-( Nature can be cruel at times.
Raising a litter is never stress free and there are a number of milestones one wants to reach - the first 3 days, the first week (doubled in weight) and the second week (mobile and eyes open)
At the time of writing (March 28th) the pups are thriving and are all of a healthy size, 3 of them have their eyes open, and Chandler's will soon be too, being mobile is an understatement, these pups are active!
I'll be adding to this page regularly, the next update will have individual photos of the pips showing their colours, markings and heads (complete with open eyes).
General Litter Shots
Random shots and in no particular order
