Saturday 28 November 2009

Haircuts and surgical cuts







I am pleased to say that Oliver has left to join a lovely new family today, a couple and their white toy poodle. I think he has well and truely fallen on his feet and get the impression that he is going to be spoilt rotten. He had a wash and brush up before he left, and looked very cute.

Bella, our working cocker has more than made up for one pup leaving by producing 8 gorgeous babies. It unfortunatly wasn't trouble free. She started showing signs on the start of labour, being restless and a bit huffy puffy, on Thursday evening. So I had a restless night, as did she, setting my alarm every couple of hours to go and check that she wasn't in full labour, Friday morning and she appeared ok so I took the rest of the girls for their walk. At 10:30 Graham phoned to say she was leaking, so I cut the walk short and was back in about 45 minutes. She didn't do anything until 12:30 when out popped a beautiful tri coloured bitch, with apparently very little effort. Brilliant I thought, at last a considerate dog who was going to produce pups easily and at a civilised time - wrong. The next pup didn't arrive until 2:20 but was followed fairly quickly by the 3rd, then nothing. At 6pm we took a very relaxed Bella to the vets with her 3 pups. An xray confirmed therre were at least 3 more to come, one of which was already in the birth canal.
She was given a shot of oxytocin to try and get things moving, half an hour later and she was almost asleep in the back of the car. This was then followed by the vet attempting to pull the pup out, but it was just that bit too far back. At this point the only option was a caeserian. She couldn't have had more attention, there were 3 vets, 2 nurses, Graham and myself, she had timed her visit well :-). The pup who had been stuck in the birth canal was the only one that took a bit of real effort to get going, and my thanks have to go to Emma for reviving him, but within a very short period we had a total of 8 noisy pups. We were on our way home within 15 minutes of the last suture going in, and Bella was feeding her new brood as soon as they were in the whelping box, they are so much more resiliant than us humans!
Mum and pups are thriving and once again it will be nice to see a different breed developing (and no clipping, hooray)

Friday 20 November 2009

Bouncing back


After loosing Cinders it's been hard to get back in the swing, but when you have a naughty pup to keep you occupied, it helps. Oliver has definately got an outgoing personality. He wants to be in on everything, he thinks he is "the man" when playing with the big dogs, barking and growling and they are so gentle with him, even Audrey who is still only a puppy herself. He is very keen to say hello to all our visitors and as can be seen from the photos, he thinks little boys (one of my daughters friends) are great fun!
He is still looking for that special home to call his own, please give me a ring if you would like more details. He will be ready to go in about 2 weeks. He is going to be a small toy, the photos make him look bigger than he is, which at the moment is 3.5" tall.

Monday 16 November 2009

Cinders R.I.P.


Yesterday, whilst in the care of a good friend, Cinders was hit by a car and killed. This was a terrible accident and no one is to blame, not even the F****ing taxi driver who didn't stop even though there were children in the road trying to get Cinders back, and when later tracked down said she didn't have time to stop for that sort of thing as she had to get to work!
I write this as a little tribute to her memory. I was conned when I bought Cinders, she came from a respected breeder who lives about 6 hours from me, on the initial phone enquiry I stressed that to fit into our household she needed to be an outgoing pup (she was 5 months old when I took her on). I was assured this was the case. Due to journey time we agreed to meet at a show where he was exhibiting some of his other dogs. He presented me with a cat box with a very frightened pup at the back of it, he assured me that this was purely because she had never been in a car before and a show is a frightening place for a first visit. I should have listened to my instincts and walked away, but because of the journey we had made I allowed myself to beleive him. As we were leaving (having paid a huge sum of money for her) he casualy mentioned that she had never had a coolar or lead on, wasn't housetrained and he hadn't given her a name.
When we got home she spent the first few weeks hiding in corners and would go rigid when picked up, in time she trusted us and learned to enjoy human and canine company. Walks were her greatest pleasure, she ran like the wind, chased rabbit and deer with the big dogs on walks and played with toys, she wouldn't hesitate about running up to greet people we met on her walks. I think her walks were the way she de stressed herself as she was quite a hyper dog in the house. She also insisted on sitting on my lap in the evenings which is where she felt secure.
What we never achieved was geting her completly housetrained. I know she started life in a flat, what I am guessing she was crated for lengthy periods as she would happily soil her pen and then sleep in it, she would also toilet anywhere else in the house if she got caught short. We worked hard on this by giving her every opportunity to go out, and by keeping her beds clean at all times, and to a certain extent this worked but if she was upset about anything she would forget and would mess in her pen overnight.
She had a puppy last year, and initialy she was very overprotective about him, burrying him in the bedding and carrying him around the house! but in the end she did a very good job with him and Jack was a fantastic happy little chap.
I am now glad I took Cinders on as I think the two years she spent here were good ones, far better than the life she had previously, without a name, without walks and without love.

Sunday 8 November 2009

Oliver





I know, it's fatal giving them a name, but he is always wanting more of everything so he had to be Oliver. He is most definately out and about now ('though still a bit unsteady), he is already investigating everything, and constantly getting himself in trouble with the cats. Once he has had enough action - at the moment he can manage about 10 minutes before he is flaked out, he wants to snuggle on the nearest available lap, where he will sleep for as long as you sit still. The big dogs have started to take an interest in him so he finds he is often fast asleep and a giant nose comes from nowhere and pushes him out of bed!