A very big ask

This is a very difficult post for me to write, the time has come to start to look for a permenant home for Frankie. She needs a home where someone will have plenty of time for her, coupled with a good level of experience in bringing on puppies, ideally they will have 1 or 2 sensible dogs to give her some canine company and the icing on the cake would be to find someone who has the money to have her eyes operated on in the next couple of months, which will restore her sight, something that is totally out of reach for me at the moment as through no fault of his own Graham has been out of work for a few months.

I had hoped to be able to keep her myself for a bit lomger, but my problem is, the longer she stays the more I am falling for her and I am finding the thought of letting her go is getting harder and harder but I still believe she would do better in a home with less dogs.

She is a beautiful, happy girl who in many ways reminds me of Audrey. Her tail wags all the time and she smiles! She has a good recall, she knows sit and down although wait and stay are proving to be a bit harder for her. She walks on the lead in a confident manner and is not bothered by heavy traffic. She doesn't spook at things when we are out although she is quiet when we meet strangers, she is happy off the lead and enjoys walks. She will need to be groomed by a patient yet competent groomer as she does not like the clippers on her face.

I wasn't planning on keeping any more dogs this year :-)

But when you have animals things never seem to go quite according to plan! So I now have Frankie and yesterday I collected Dorothy (Dotty for short). Dotty is probably the best toy parti poodle that I have come accross (though in fairness I haven't met that many). She is an extreemly well put together puppy and to cap it all she is bold as brass.

She and Frankie are playing non stop and although, to my knowledge, she has never met any dogs other than toy poodles she strutted in like she had been here all her life. I think we are going to have lots of fun with this little lady. The pictures are not great because she doesn't stay still!

And then there were two

Sunday, Galax had his health check, prior to flying on Monday, which he sailed through. That was the easy part for him, we then drove down to Sunbury to spend the night at my friends' Rosie in preparation for getting him to Heathrow for 7:15am. Poor boy was terribly car sick all the way, he picked up pretty quickly once we arrived but didn't gancy his dinner. The following morning he was keen for his breakfast which he had at 6am in the hope it would be digested by the time he flew (10:20am).He managed the car journey to the airport without incadent which was a relief, but unfortunatly the plane journey was just too much! But hopefuly he is now feeling much better as he settles into his new life with Monica in Norway.

Remy also came with us for the journey as he has board and lodging with another friend who is going to be flying to Canada with him in a few weeks, I have to say it was much easier leaving Remy in a nice home than Galax in a crate in a warehouse type building (the staff were very reassuring that he would be well looked after).

So now the house is a lot quieter, just Super Duper Dave and Frankie and come the weekend if all goes well it will just be Frankie as Dave is practicing his bagpipes as we speak in preparation to his new life in Scotland. They are both booked in for their 1st vaccinations on Thursday and then Frankie will be attending her 1st puppy class in the evening. If I can find someone to accompany us I will try to get a bit of video then. She has done a bit more lead work today, she has learnt to keep her nose to the back of my legs and trots along very confidently, I am looking forward to being able to take her out more once she has had a jab. Despite having a couple of lovely offers of homes, I have decided to keep her for a couple of months until I am happy that she is well enough socialised to cope with a new environment, I still hope to re home her as I still feel that she will benifit from a less doggy home where she isn't one of a pack. Having said that, when you look at the photos of her charging around the garden (1st time in that area) I would be very surprised if anyone thought they were looking at a blind pup!  I don't know why the text has suddenly changed colour and is underlined?

All Clear

The apricot pups had their follow up appointments with the eye specialist today and were given the all clear to go to their new homes :-). All the silver pups except Galax, who is off to Norway on Monday, are now enjoying life with their new families and today 2 of the apricot girls went off to pastures new.

2 of the apricot boys are still waiting for a home of their own, Super Duper Dave(a real character) and Vinnie (a complete thug, in the nicest possible way!). They are in the centre of the photo below.

Frankie continues to impress me. She had her 1st outing yesterday, to the hairdressers. She quite happily sat on my knee admist all the hustle and bustle, she wasn't at all worried by the noise of the hairdryers. Obviously she caused a lot of attention - well she is beautiful, and whilst she didn't back away from anything she was a little reserved when strangers approached. However once we got outside I popped a lead on her (1st time) and walked down the High Street. She was a little star and trotted on quite confidently, not at all bothered by any of the heavy traffic, and when people approached her she responded by wagging her tail. The only special guidance I gave her was to let her know when she had to go up or down a kerb. I have now ordered her a T shirt advising people that she is blind. Picture below shows Sahara, just before leaving today, and Frankie insisting she is centre of attention.

I have had a suggestion for my website that I have a page where I can post pictures and information of pups and their owners, this will allow those who want to see how their pups siblings are progressing and possibly contact other owners. If you have a pup I would be interested on your views and if you are in favour perhaps you could send me a photo with any information/contact details that you feel is appropriate.

Swings and roundabouts

The pups are becoming more and more of a handful, despite the fact that 6 silvers have gone to their new homes we still have a lot of puppies. All the silvers now have homes, but we now have 2/3 apricot boys that have become re available, these boys all have very strong chatacters and will make great companions (They love a cuddle as well, as you can see in the pictures). All the apricot pups are due to be seen by the eye specialist on 02.09.2010 and hopefully they will be given the all clear to go to their new homes then.

The pups may look a little bedraggled in some of the pictures, this is due to the persistant rain we have had, I think if they stay here much longer they will develop flippers!!  Monica - you should be able to identufy Galax in the photos soon, as he should be the only silver here after the weekend:-).

FrankieMy Movie (4)

Sat here studying the pups so thought the sensible thing would be to keep a video record of how Frankie copes in various situations.So this is the start of it, slightly off topic but I need to get Rosie down to work out why the colour is so poor on my films as some of the pups are a really rich colour and they all have a washed out appearance in these shots. I am going to start getting Frankie out and about as soon as possible and I need to find a puppy class that has experience of disabled pups. I am also going to see if I can get her some sort of tabbard made up advising people that she is blind and to talk to her before touching. Anyway, sorry if this is a bit rambling, it's just me sort of talking to myself.

Frankie

Frankie is one of Rhondas pups, she has unfortunately developed cataracts and is now blind (these are NOT hereditary cataracts).He thinks it likely that Rhonda had a viral infection during pregnancy that has caused this problem. I can't begin to describe how upsetting this has been. This happened very quickly and all the other pups have been seen by an eye specialist and will be checked again in 2 weeks time. Frankie - so named after ol'blue eyes Frank Sianatra, is coping remarkably well. When she is with her littermates you would be hard pushed to see any problem but once she is on her own she does bump into things a bit more. She is however a remarkably confident, happy and loving pup therefore I feel she deserves a chance at life.

The eye specialist feels she is a good candidate for surgery once she is a bit bigger, but at a cost approaching £3000 this is going to require some serious saving and may well take a long time before we can look at going down this route.

Ideally I would like to find a very special home for this pup, she should live a pretty normal life but obviously there are many considerations to take account of when caring for a blind pup. Until the right home can be found she will be part of our family and if necessary she will stay here, although I feel she would be better placed in a household with less dogs.

The first of Dollars pups, now known as Cally has gone to her new home, she is going to be a very spoilt puppy, lucky girl. 2 of her brothers are still waiting to find somebody to love.

All the pups were microchipped on Weds, they travelled very well, only a couple were sick on the journey - though they managed to ensure they shared it with every pup in the van :-)  Not one puppy made a sound when they were chipped, a credit to Emmas chipping technique.