Daisy was deathly ill and had to spend almost a week a the vet's. All 4 of the younger puppies suffered briefly from the same thing, but responded to antibiotics. Because she had ehrlichiosis when she showed up a few weeks earlier her defenses were already weakened.
poor sick Daisy, just home from the vet's:
After a week of injections and antibiotics here at home she's still a little bag of bones, but her white cell count is up, she's getting stronger and she's starting to play; it looks like she'll be ok.
feeling a bit better:
The four lucky pups are doing fine...the 3 black pups:
and little fawn colored Xmul (found by Nicole and Marie):
have had a better start than most...
with walks in the mornings:
and 24 hour a day doting by Emily:
Elewah insists there is no resemblance:
and Miles is not impressed:
everyone else thinks they're swell,
especially Stella:
We've gone through a few names and settled on
Twiggy:
Luna:
and Mo:
Xmul likes to charge at the camera, so most of her pictures look like this:
Xmul napping with Alice:
The newest dog pen is a huge hit! It's the dog's favorite place to hang out (unless we want to shut the door, then it's awful!).
Some random puppy silliness:
Enough puppy news; here's our beautiful Monkey:
and sweet Molly:
Floyd has been showing some improvement in his behavior, although we still keep him sequestered from the other males (except for Ziggy, for some reason he has no problem with Ziggy.). He has complicated life here at the dog ranch, but isn't his fault.
He loves Stella most of all:
Oh, yeah...and because life is a sit-com...our chickens...are roosters
...and scene!
...would be as sweet.
I'd like to introduce you to the newest member of our family...but he doesn't have a name yet.
Ivan?Beauregard?Leroy?
Sam?
I'm long past hoping that he's lost or that I'll be able to find another home for him.
I try to stay positive here but, I have to admit, I find humans to be consistently disappointing -hamstrung by stunted imagination and conditional compassion.
Not worth the gunpowder to blow them up, as my dear Grandma used to say.
I went out to investigate some canine goings-on on the beach. Occasionally the dog of one of our distant neighbors gets left behind on walks and has to fend for herself; I hate to see her get harassed by strays, so I go out and play chaperon. This time it wasn't her and instead I broke up a dog sex party...a bitch in heat and a few determined males. That explains all the noise at night lately.
I scooped her up (really she jumped into my arms) and headed home with her suitors in tow. She'll be going to the vet to be spayed just as soon as our truck is working.
After that I don't know.
Soon after she was taken out of play the males wandered off, but for one.
He sat at the gate looking forlorn and wouldn't be run off.
He's big, scarred, covered with bite marks, ticks and fleas
and is perfectly wonderful.
I went out to see him and fell in love. Seriously unbelievable...
intact, with a bitch in heat around and yet everybody liked him immediately.
Even Bosha, the weirdest dog I've ever met
(she's our neighbor's dog and is staying here while her human is out of town.).
Bosha and Maggie
We built a pen for him to stay in at night and when the bitch is loose,
but within a day or 2 he has taken to sleeping on the upstairs porch.
He hasn't ventured inside more than a few feet; he isn't sure about those ceiling fans.
He looks like a cross between a yellow lab and a pit bull to me.
Sweet, silly and slightly cross-eyed; you couldn't wish for a nicer dog.
Well... he is a little too interested in the chickens, but we'll work on it.
Update: We're calling him Floyd. He's a sweet, fun guy -an overgrown puppy with plenty of bad habits. He also seems to have some vision trouble that we're trying to understand. He's been neutered and blood tests turned up ehrlichiosis, a common tickborne bacterial infection that would prove fatal if untreated. So, a pill a day and lots of discipline for Floyd.
Final Update 10/11: What began so well has come to a sad end. Once Floyd was comfortable his dominant/territorial tendencies came out. We soon realized he couldn't be trusted around other males or too many dogs at once. Despite our best efforts over the course of a very stressful 9 months, we had to admit defeat and have him put down; we didn't have the space, resources or manpower to safely keep him.
