{"id":2167,"date":"2026-05-27T13:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T18:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/three-doves.com\/?p=2167"},"modified":"2026-05-27T15:02:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T20:02:46","slug":"game-on-litter-day-two-veterinary-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/three-doves.com\/?p=2167","title":{"rendered":"Game On Litter \u2014 Day Two Veterinary Visit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t

 <\/p>\n

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The whole Game On crew, bundled into one warm basket and ready to head to the vet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Albert & Terra Collver \u00b7 May 27, 2026<\/em><\/p>\n

It is day two for the Game On litter – eight tiny passengers tucked into a warm basket, with Etta riding alongside, on their way to Franklin County Animal Medical Center for their first veterinary check-up.<\/p>\n

The Day 2 visit is a Three Doves tradition. At this appointment we examine each new puppy, check mom over carefully, and have the breed-standard tail docking and rear-dewclaw removal performed while the puppies are still tiny enough that the whole procedure is brief, low-stress, and very well tolerated. Pups are usually back home and nursing within the hour, none the worse for the morning’s adventure.<\/p>\n

How Etta is doing<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Etta had a textbook whelp very early on May 26 – eight live puppies, five girls and three boys, every placenta accounted for, and a strong, attentive mother throughout. Today Dr. Hannah looked her over carefully – heart and lungs, abdomen, mammary glands – and we are delighted to report that Etta has come through the whelp beautifully. She left with a clean fecal flotation and a course of Pro Pectalin<\/a> to keep her digestion settled while she does the hard work of feeding eight very hungry puppies.<\/p>\n

The puppies, one by one<\/h4>\n
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Dr. Hannah Kruse McDowell, DVM, with the Game On crew, ready for their first physical exam.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Each puppy received a thorough hands-on examination – heart and lung sounds, gentle palpation, a look at the eyes and nostrils, and importantly a careful inspection of the inside of the mouth and the roof of the palate. A cleft palate is the kind of thing that must be ruled out early; it would prevent a puppy from nursing successfully and would call for very specific intervention. We are happy to report that every Game On puppy passed the cleft check with flying colors and continues to nurse vigorously and gain weight steadily.<\/p>\n

Tail docking and rear dewclaws – the Three Doves approach<\/h4>\n

The English Springer Spaniel is, by long tradition, a docked breed in the United States. Done by an experienced veterinarian on a newborn, docking is a quick procedure that the puppies tolerate remarkably well – they are typically back to nursing within minutes.<\/p>\n

Where breeders sometimes disagree is on how short<\/em>. At Three Doves we belong firmly to the “leave enough tail” camp. We do not want a very tight or extremely short dock; what we want is a balanced, sporting-dog length that frames the dog correctly in the show ring, that blends in with the coat as it grows in, and that leaves a working tail to wag.<\/p>\n

For our docks, we use what many Springer breeders call the “quarter method.” \u00a0Before any cuts are made, a U.S. quarter is placed at the very base of the puppy’s tail, aligned with the rectum. The dock is made just beyond the far edge of the coin – leaving a moderate-length dock rather than a very short one. The result is a tail long enough to maintain proper breed outline and the level-to-slightly-elevated carriage called for in the AKC standard, and long enough that as the adult coat fills in, the tail still reads as part of the dog rather than getting lost in the feathering.<\/p>\n

A few related notes we like to share with new puppy families:<\/p>\n– The adult coat will visually shorten the tail over time, so when in doubt we lean a touch longer rather than shorter.
\n– Males with heavier substance often look more balanced with a touch more tail length.
\n– Docking conventions vary by region and by field-versus-conformation lines. The AKC breed standard does not give an exact measurement in inches – it asks only that the docked tail harmonize with the overall dog.\n

Along with the tail docks, the rear dewclaws<\/em> were also removed this morning. Front dewclaws on a Springer Spaniel often serve a functional purpose and are left in place (also a point of debate and contention among some). Rear dewclaws, by contrast, are loosely attached and prone to catching, tearing, and causing injury later in life – so removing them in the first few days, while the tissue is soft and the puppies recover almost instantly, is a real kindness to the adult dog.<\/p>\n

A thank-you to Dr. Hannah and the team at Franklin County<\/h4>\n

We cannot say enough good things about Dr. Hannah Kruse McDowell, DVM, and the entire team at Franklin County Animal Medical Center. Dr. Hannah has been with us through this pregnancy from beginning to end – the pregnancy ultrasound, the pregnancy radiograph and puppy count, today’s Day-2 well-puppy check and tail docks – and her care, her attention to detail, and her obvious affection for the dogs has been everything a breeder could hope for.<\/p>\n

We also want to take a moment to thank Dr. Hunt Tainter, who owns the practice. Dr. Tainter understands breeders and breeding programs in a way that is genuinely rare, and his clinic does outstanding work for the breeding community. Franklin County Animal Medical Center has provided veterinary care for every Three Doves litter to date, and their combination of twenty-first-century medicine with old-fashioned, in-the-room compassion is exactly what a kennel like ours hopes for in a veterinary partner.<\/p>\n

You can learn more about FCAMC at [fcamcvet.com<\/a>]. They are located at 921 West 14th Street, Washington, MO 63090, and can be reached at 636-390-9280.<\/p>\n

Home, and back to nursing<\/h4>\n
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Etta and the Game On litter, back home and back to business after a successful first vet visit.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By late morning the basket was back in the car, and by early afternoon the puppies were all latched on and Etta had her chin down for a well-earned rest. Game On Day 2 is in the books – and we could not be more proud of our girl and her beautiful litter.<\/p>\n

Stay tuned for weekly weight updates, our Early Neurological Stimulation and Early Scent Introduction work, and the first Puppy Culture sessions over the days to come.<\/p>\n– The Collvers<\/em>
\nThree Doves Performance Dogs – AKC Breeder of Merit, English Springer Spaniel<\/em>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  The whole Game On crew, bundled into one warm basket and ready to head to the vet. By Albert & Terra Collver \u00b7 May 27, 2026 It is day two for the Game On litter – eight tiny passengers tucked into a warm basket, with Etta riding alongside, on their way to Franklin County…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2170,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,25,118,26,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blaze","category-breeding","category-etta","category-puppies","category-springer-spaniel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/three-doves.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_5177.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pheJqv-yX","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/three-doves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/three-doves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/three-doves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/three-doves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/three-doves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2167"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/three-doves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2174,"href":"https:\/\/three-doves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2167\/revisions\/2174"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/three-doves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/three-doves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/three-doves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/three-doves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}