Seven weeks old and we all hear!

This was a crucial week for the Jewels. As a breeder you always know in the back of your mind that this is a breed with several issues and hurdles to cross as you go along. One of the biggest hurdles is hearing. The incidence of deafness in Dalmatians is highest of all breeds, with as many as 29.9 percent of Dalmatians born deaf in one or both ears. (From an article published on May of 2011). 

There are various ways of home testing, one I use is a small bell. I wait until all of the puppies are asleep and ring the bell, not too loudly, and watch for heads to pop up. I am always comforted by all the tiny heads that raise as the pups react to the sound of the bell. It is a sad thing when I don't see a head pop up. Even when I do see all of the pups react to the sound of the bell, I cannot rest until it is made official by the BAER Hearing test. BAER stands for Brainstem Auditory Evoked Response. The pups are wired up to a computer and each ear receives a sound emitted by an ear plug. We test each pup, one ear at a time. 

Good news with the Jewels, all of the puppies can hear! Six of the Seven can hear in both ears. One pup hears in only one, but he should be able to live a perfectly normal life. So we are very happy to be able to say that out of seven puppies, no patches, no blue eyes and thirteen hearing ears out of fourteen!

Next week I will travel to CA to see the Jewels and evaluate their temperment and structure. I am so excited to see them, they just get cuter every week and it is so hard to have to watch them from such a distance away!

Here are the seven week photos. Please excuse the blurry parts as they puppies were giving Marilyn and Jackie a hard time trying to stack them. 

Flint

Jasper

Amber

Opal

Ruby

Sapphire

Pearl

See you all next week!