The photos and updates of the puppies continue to arrive and they really are gorgeous.
So working on the theory that there may be a puppy joining the menagerie in the late autumn I have started to check that I have all the non-perishable things I might need. Bedding & towels I have a plentiful supply of, the dog-gate and crate were returned by littlest sister when they moved house (they had borrowed them when they got a puppy a couple of years ago). And I have more pet toys than I know what to do with.
Last week I was passing a pet supply shop and just called in for a walk round. I gave in to temptation and bought an adjustable collar, just in case. My theory was that I liked it and it was a well made one that would do from coming home to at least half-grown if not almost fully grown. Plus I have no idea if I would be passing that shop again in the near future (it was 4 or more years since I last passed by it) and as they only had one in stock I had better buy it now.
Of course the big debate is, assuming that there is a new addition, what would it be called? I have always had great problems naming pets. Mono and Fluffy were easy, they came with their names and as they had had them for 8 years I thought it best to keep them. Holly took almost a week to come up with a name that I liked and Linus the best part of a month! Olaf was the quickest at 3 days.
So with the knowledge of past problems I have been thinking about potential names and making a shortlist, only its more of a long-list.
Sometime in the first few days after being asked about being on the reserve list a girls name popped into my head and eventually made it onto the piece of paper that I am using to keep track of potential names on. So far that is the only girls name to make it to the shortlist. For boys the list is currently at 11, there are four 'favourites' from the boys list but I regularly change my mind about the favourites. What I think will happen is that whatever I think I have chosen, as and when a new addition is due to come home, I will change my mind when I have spent some time with it.
Wednesday 24 September 2014
Monday 15 September 2014
Roller-coaster of a Weekend
After pacing up and down on Thursday last week news of the puppies arrived at lunchtime. There was good news and devastating news.
The good news was that there were twelve healthy good-sized puppies, a nice mix of 7 girls and 5 boys.
The devastating news was that the breeder had lost Mum. She had managed to give them one feed but they were sorry for the lack of photos and updates but they were now bottle feeding every two hours.
Two weeks into a new job in the run up to the start of an academic year is not the time to ask for "this afternoon and tomorrow off" plus I had no idea if I would be a help or a hindrance. The last time I bottle fed anything was a good 5 plus years ago and my experience is mostly pet-lambs and the odd almost weaned kitten.
After what felt like a lifetime (3 days) of not really having the opportunity to spend any time online and when I did manage to read the updates it was through my phone so I could see that there were attachments but I could not view them, I had the chance today to re-read everything on a computer.
Some wonderful people did what I could not and dropped everything and went to provide assistance. A foster mum (a hairy godmother) has also been located, loaned, transported and has taken the pups on. Queue one deep sigh of relief. As worried as I had been about the pups I think I was more concerned for their breeder and her other half. I know how heart-breaking it is to loose a dog, or any much loved pet, but could not imagine how much harder it must be to loose one in these circumstances. To know they have support and help makes me feel much happier especially as I still had no idea what sensible and practical assistance I could have offered.
To finish on a positive note, the photos that have been sent show a dozen gorgeous chubby puppies eating, snoozing and snuggling with each other and their hairy godmother.
The good news was that there were twelve healthy good-sized puppies, a nice mix of 7 girls and 5 boys.
The devastating news was that the breeder had lost Mum. She had managed to give them one feed but they were sorry for the lack of photos and updates but they were now bottle feeding every two hours.
Two weeks into a new job in the run up to the start of an academic year is not the time to ask for "this afternoon and tomorrow off" plus I had no idea if I would be a help or a hindrance. The last time I bottle fed anything was a good 5 plus years ago and my experience is mostly pet-lambs and the odd almost weaned kitten.
After what felt like a lifetime (3 days) of not really having the opportunity to spend any time online and when I did manage to read the updates it was through my phone so I could see that there were attachments but I could not view them, I had the chance today to re-read everything on a computer.
Some wonderful people did what I could not and dropped everything and went to provide assistance. A foster mum (a hairy godmother) has also been located, loaned, transported and has taken the pups on. Queue one deep sigh of relief. As worried as I had been about the pups I think I was more concerned for their breeder and her other half. I know how heart-breaking it is to loose a dog, or any much loved pet, but could not imagine how much harder it must be to loose one in these circumstances. To know they have support and help makes me feel much happier especially as I still had no idea what sensible and practical assistance I could have offered.
To finish on a positive note, the photos that have been sent show a dozen gorgeous chubby puppies eating, snoozing and snuggling with each other and their hairy godmother.
Monday 8 September 2014
Pacing Up and Down Anxiously
One of the things I started to do shortly after Holly celebrated her 2 year post-diagnosis anniversary was to start thinking about if I would want another dog once she had gone.
I had a good think about it and decided that I would want another one, but what?
First of all I felt incredibly guilty thinking about getting another dog when Holly was there and still very healthy so I stopped thinking about it. Until she had her wobble in the November. That made me realise that doing some planning and thinking and investigating before-hand was a sensible thing to do so that all the ground-work would be in place and ready for use when I was ready.
So I sat down with Holly and told her what I was doing, I wasn't too sure if she understood but she gave the impression of listening to what I was telling her.
First port of call was the internet and those websites where you can answer questions about your lifestyle and it will tell you your ideal dog breed. Some of the results were hilarious and very very wrong. But in the top 5 each time was always at least 2 breeds from the gun-dog group. When I think of the gun-dog group the first things that come to mind are ditzy spaniels and huge bouncy pointers and retrievers, neither of which are things I was looking for. But as the group was a reoccurring theme I thought the group warranted further investigation.
I very carefully read about each breed, their size, personality and known health issues. And for the most part I dismissed them as too big and boistrous or far too energetic. Holly used to be energetic but it was a controlled energy and not a wild uncontrolled wizzing around energy. OK sometimes if we had not been somewhere she thought of as fantastically brilliant for ages, such as the beach, she would spend the first 15 or 20 minutes going mad-dog.
Just when I was about to dismiss the whole group I came across the Hungarian Wire-haired Vizsla. The more I read the more I liked the sound of them, but I had never met one. So I started to research breeders and found a few that I liked the sound of from their websites, the only problem was that most of them were several hundred miles away. All except for one who was about an hours drive and fairly close to where I have friends living.
I wrote and re-wrote and then deleted and started again an email to her many many times over the course of about 6 weeks before I finally plucked up the courage to click send. We emailed back and forth a few times, mainly me asking questions and her sending answers, and eventually we provisionally set a date for me to go out there and meet her gang (and her and her partner) and see if they were what I thought they would be and if I liked them. And also for her and her dogs to meet me and see if I would be someone she would consider putting on her puppy-in-waiting list. We set it for early May in the theory that it would be warmer and drier and we would be able to sit in the garden. On the day we sat in the house watching the rain. I had arranged to go from hers to my friends and have a day out, the plan was to call in and see the dogs, have a cup of tea and a chat and probably only stay about an hour. In the end I was there for almost 3 hours as we sat and talked dogs past present and future, it was a text from my friends wanting to know if I was going to be there for lunch that made me aware of how much time had passed. I resisted the temptation to smuggle one of her dogs into the car, said my goodbyes and went off to see my friends.
The next day I dropped her and email saying I loved the dogs and was I someone she would consider allowing to adopt one of her puppies when the time came. The reply came back yes!
Fast forward several months and emails to about a week after I had said the last goodbye to Holly, I got an email, that it sounded like she had had as much trouble writing as I had the first one to her. One of her bitches was in pup and her scan had revealed more than the average number of offspring so would I like to be a reserve in case there was a spare? I was about to go away for a long weekend so asked if she would pencil me in as a possible and I would think about it and talk to Mum and Dad on my return and let her know one way or another. The answer went back as yes I would be happy to be a reserve.
You may remember from an earlier post that my littlest sister was having a baby, well little sister was due about 10 days before the puppies. By the middle of last week Littlest sister was over-due and the bitch was showing signs of being early. Littlest sister went into Hospital on the Thursday evening and (eventually!) had a little girl just after 4.30am on the Saturday morning. I, and the rest of my family, spent most of Friday leaping up excitedly every time the phone bleeped with a text message or a phone call. On Saturday I got an email saying it looked like pups might be on the way so I went straight into frantically leaping up every time I get notification that an email has arrived.
So far plenty of email updates from the breeder and replies from the other new puppy owners in waiting, mostly about what the mum-to-be is doing now, having fun and doing anything and everything except having pups!
So I am going to go back to idly thinking about names should there be a 'spare' it's not so much a short-list, its more of a long and growing list.
I had a good think about it and decided that I would want another one, but what?
First of all I felt incredibly guilty thinking about getting another dog when Holly was there and still very healthy so I stopped thinking about it. Until she had her wobble in the November. That made me realise that doing some planning and thinking and investigating before-hand was a sensible thing to do so that all the ground-work would be in place and ready for use when I was ready.
So I sat down with Holly and told her what I was doing, I wasn't too sure if she understood but she gave the impression of listening to what I was telling her.
First port of call was the internet and those websites where you can answer questions about your lifestyle and it will tell you your ideal dog breed. Some of the results were hilarious and very very wrong. But in the top 5 each time was always at least 2 breeds from the gun-dog group. When I think of the gun-dog group the first things that come to mind are ditzy spaniels and huge bouncy pointers and retrievers, neither of which are things I was looking for. But as the group was a reoccurring theme I thought the group warranted further investigation.
I very carefully read about each breed, their size, personality and known health issues. And for the most part I dismissed them as too big and boistrous or far too energetic. Holly used to be energetic but it was a controlled energy and not a wild uncontrolled wizzing around energy. OK sometimes if we had not been somewhere she thought of as fantastically brilliant for ages, such as the beach, she would spend the first 15 or 20 minutes going mad-dog.
Just when I was about to dismiss the whole group I came across the Hungarian Wire-haired Vizsla. The more I read the more I liked the sound of them, but I had never met one. So I started to research breeders and found a few that I liked the sound of from their websites, the only problem was that most of them were several hundred miles away. All except for one who was about an hours drive and fairly close to where I have friends living.
I wrote and re-wrote and then deleted and started again an email to her many many times over the course of about 6 weeks before I finally plucked up the courage to click send. We emailed back and forth a few times, mainly me asking questions and her sending answers, and eventually we provisionally set a date for me to go out there and meet her gang (and her and her partner) and see if they were what I thought they would be and if I liked them. And also for her and her dogs to meet me and see if I would be someone she would consider putting on her puppy-in-waiting list. We set it for early May in the theory that it would be warmer and drier and we would be able to sit in the garden. On the day we sat in the house watching the rain. I had arranged to go from hers to my friends and have a day out, the plan was to call in and see the dogs, have a cup of tea and a chat and probably only stay about an hour. In the end I was there for almost 3 hours as we sat and talked dogs past present and future, it was a text from my friends wanting to know if I was going to be there for lunch that made me aware of how much time had passed. I resisted the temptation to smuggle one of her dogs into the car, said my goodbyes and went off to see my friends.
The next day I dropped her and email saying I loved the dogs and was I someone she would consider allowing to adopt one of her puppies when the time came. The reply came back yes!
Fast forward several months and emails to about a week after I had said the last goodbye to Holly, I got an email, that it sounded like she had had as much trouble writing as I had the first one to her. One of her bitches was in pup and her scan had revealed more than the average number of offspring so would I like to be a reserve in case there was a spare? I was about to go away for a long weekend so asked if she would pencil me in as a possible and I would think about it and talk to Mum and Dad on my return and let her know one way or another. The answer went back as yes I would be happy to be a reserve.
You may remember from an earlier post that my littlest sister was having a baby, well little sister was due about 10 days before the puppies. By the middle of last week Littlest sister was over-due and the bitch was showing signs of being early. Littlest sister went into Hospital on the Thursday evening and (eventually!) had a little girl just after 4.30am on the Saturday morning. I, and the rest of my family, spent most of Friday leaping up excitedly every time the phone bleeped with a text message or a phone call. On Saturday I got an email saying it looked like pups might be on the way so I went straight into frantically leaping up every time I get notification that an email has arrived.
So far plenty of email updates from the breeder and replies from the other new puppy owners in waiting, mostly about what the mum-to-be is doing now, having fun and doing anything and everything except having pups!
So I am going to go back to idly thinking about names should there be a 'spare' it's not so much a short-list, its more of a long and growing list.
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