Ashley is a special girl. With her 9 littermates, Ash was born into the world about a week early, and with the large number in the litter, several like herself were very tiny. Life was not easy and Ash lost 3 of her littmates in the first two days. Ash herself was very weak and made several trips to the vet and was not expected to live.

But she was a fighter and did not give up. She was also happy and never behaved like a tiny sick pup. She would always try to eat and move around and puch in for a drink and later even walk, even though she was still at birthweight at almost 3 weeks of age with siblings over 4 times her size.

Eventually all her immature systems caught up and she started gaining weight at around 3 weeks of age and she never looked back for the next 6 weeks. After that she was just a normal puppy with no sign of those difficult first weeks, aside from being a kilogram lighter than her siblings.

More details of the early days can be dug through on the BLOG.

Both of Ash's parents, Shitani and Abby, have been tested and found to be clear of Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinosis (CL), as per relevant Genetic Science Services report numbers on her parents pages, and so Ash is clear by parentage. For more information, please see the Border Collie Health page.

At 2 weeks, Ash had little energy spare for keeping warm, even with the heat lamp keeping the whelping box nice and toasty. She liked to curl up with her bigger brothers and sisters. She was still a mere 200 grams.

At this stage, while still just 2 weeks old, Ash went to live with a new group of siblings who were more her size. Dot's pups were born when Ash was 15 days old and she was still a mere 210 grams. Her new friends were heavier at birth, with Henry a whopping 320 grams, but getting some milk with Dot and the 3 guys more her size was a lot easier.

With sore eyes and minimal weight gain over the first three weeks, Ash was on her feet, gaining weight, and on her way up. She still looked like a sick little puppy, but was now actually starting to look like she might actually make it.