Wednesday 28 October 2009

3 Weeks old and homeless!!



Betty's pup, which at the moment is being called Blobby due to his rather round well fed shape, has now got his eyes open and is making some effort to get up and about. He is doing very well as he has no competition, but being an only baby means that he isn't happy when Betty leaves him for a toilet break so he now has a cuddly toy to snuggle into when he is left.
Within 72 hours of him being born I had 3 people who were very keen to have this little man, but unfortunately all have had to pull out due to personal circumstances so he has gone from being very much spoken for to needing to find a special home. He is still too young to say what sort of character he will be, obviously he should be a bold well adjusted lad but we will have to wait and see as to whether he will be a hooligan or a lap dog.
He has started to have visitors now(feline as well as human) so that his socialisation can begin.

Monday 19 October 2009

Nearly 2 weeks old



Not much can be said about Betty's pup at the moment, other than he is tiny, black and eating for England. Still difficult to get a decent picture but have put a couple of shots on anyway, would like to show him with his mum but as they are both black you can't make him out!

Thursday 8 October 2009

Just the 1!!



Betty had her puppy in the early hours of Wednesday morning - what's wrong with having pups at a sociable time? She produced a very healthy black boy with no trouble, but she was quite big during this pregnancy so I had guessed at 2 maybe 3 pups. As the morning went on Betty was showing no sign of pushing but was restless and a bit shivery so I thought I should have her checked by a vet. We got to the surgery and the vet had a feel, she thought the same as I did, definitely a lump but not sure if it was a puppy or the uterus contracting, so we took an xray, sure enough there was a mass by her pelvis which looked like a pup, the picture was a bit grainy but you could make out a skull, backbone and legs. It was almost out so the vet decided to see if a combination of squeezing the abdomen and trying to hook it out would work.
Of course Betty's size was against her, the vet could only insert 1 finger so was limited on what she could feel. After a fairly lengthy attempt to move this mass we decided that a Cesarean was our only course of action, so at this point I requested that she would be spayed at the same time (I don't believe in breeding from an animal that has needed surgical intervention to get the babies out). Just to make sure we took another xray and lo and behold the 'puppy' had gone!, we took a third picture and still no pup! We can only conclude that it must have been excrement that we saw on the 1st picture - Bettys diet contains a lot of bone.
So Betty is now home with her very precious baby, and as usual is the most devoted mum. The pictures are not great, black and small are not the easiest combination to photograph(and i'm not sure why Emily found it necessary to wear a cat mask) but hopefully we will get some better shots as he grows.