Trisven13

She did an internal.

I'm getting excited. :D :D :D :D :D You should have seen the milk dripping on to the table at the vets when she was being examined!!!

No further movement here (thank goodness) but as I had to head into town yesterday I decided to nip her into the vet for a quick last minute check up. Her cervix is dilated and she is expected to have pups in the next day or two. She also said that her uterus is large but not packed full which is a good thing as she shouldn't have them overlapping. She has eaten most of her breakfast this morning but did have a little chuck (which she has eaten up again ) - thinking that if the vet was right it will be tomorrow.

She sure does!

The kids felt the puppies moving today for the first time - they loved it! I really don't think anything is going to be happening here for a couple of days BUT you can definitely tell she is getting to the end of it all.

To answer Smoothiegirl: Toys (a group I struggle with): Tibetan Spaniel - I've spent quite a bit of time with Tibbiemax's Tibbies and they're cool Griffon - Met a few - fabulous confident little personalities ?? Terriers: Jack Russell Terrier - own a 12 year old - he rocks Border Terrier - think they look nice and they're supposed to be not quite so terrier-like Cairn Terrier - love Missymoo's that I've met - again fabulous temperaments Gundogs: Pointer - I'm not a big gun-dog person but these guys seem to be really cool and they're very attractive Irish Setter - LOVE these dogs, the look, the personality, the colour - awesome! Hungarian Wire Haired Vizsla - they look like giant Fauves Hounds (could easily list 10): Basset Fauve De Bretagne - my breed, do I need to say more? Greyhound - I've owned & rescued a number and they're lovely Deerhound - I put this in more for my OH who loves his Deerhound. I could list many, many breeds in the Hound Group, I'm a Hound Group girl. Working (another group I struggle with): Welsh Cardigan Corgi - Lara the gorgeous blue merle girl shown around here - fantastic temperament, gorgeous look, just love her Australian Kelpie - I've rescued heaps and they're amazing ??? Utility (going purely on looks - don't know enough about temps etc): Bernese Mountain Dog - They look nice Portuguese Water Dog - love the feel of their coats ????? Non Sporting: Can't think of any - sorry - since posting this I have thought of Tibetan Terrier, they seem really cool.

Oh well - at least they are people with a history of loving and caring for their animals. Lets hope the new dog is a good match for their family.

Fauves love to hang out and be part of the action but aren't huge alarm barkers - some days they will, some days they won't . They like walks but are happy without them provided they get to do stuff with you. Not a breed I recommend for off-lead stuff though I qualify that by saying I've never had a dog that was good off lead so its probably me as much as the dog . Fauves love people, kids, dogs etc etc. Worst habits are digging and howling when there is more than one of them.

Took her temp today for the first time and it was only 36.9 but she ate like a piggy still this morning. She has been doing a little digging over the last few days but nothing like I'm used to in our whelping rescue bitches so I will be surprised if she does go within the next 24 hours. If she took from the natural tie she would be due on Friday but as her prog test was only 2 on that day we're expecting her to go more likely over the weekend.

You know what I find really interesting? How many people like the Finnish Spitz yet how few of them are around as either pets or in the show ring.

Went to their website to see if there was a feedback section but couldn't see one. Just wanted to give a HUGE thumbs-up. Supplies paid for on Friday, posted on Monday, arrived today - and to a country village where things normally take days to arrive.

Yesterday's photo with a week to go (maybe less, hard to say for sure). I've tried to encourage her to hang around the house but she wants to be in this crate and will always go back into it unless she is sleeping on bed at night (and she won't go there until I go ). She is eating SOOOOOO much but it has to be fancy pants stuff, not boring old kibble .

OMG someone likes a Fauve!!!

Toys (a group I struggle with): Tibetan Spaniel Griffon ?? Terriers: Jack Russell Terrier Border Terrier Cairn Terrier Gundogs: Pointer Irish Setter Hungarian Wire Haired Vizsla Hounds (could easily list 10): Basset Fauve De Bretagne Greyhound Deerhound Working (another group I struggle with): Welsh Cardigan Corgi Australian Kelpie ??? Utility (going purely on looks - don't know enough about temps etc): Bernese Mountain Dog Portuguese Water Dog ????? Non Sporting: Can't think of any - sorry

I'm obviously no expert being that we're about to have our second letter but I think that Pav Lova's suggestion is a great one - it is what I would have done if Marie hadn't had a second positive ultrasound.

Ag shows would probably make up 50% of the shows I attend. I love them - love that the general public come and watch, my kids love that they have something a little different to look at, my husband checks out the chooks etc. I'd highly recommend them.

With a bit of a wink ;) I will acknowledge that if you can get people to wait 12 months they suddenly realise that they're not ready to go through it all again just yet ETA - I found convincing people to wait 12 months normally meant they waited 2 years or more, they just need to figure out that last bit for themselves (God knows I would!)

If you were doing it with a gap of 12 plus months between I would recommend boy/girl. Two boys can always get on as can two girls but in my experience you have the last chance of trouble when it is boy/girl BUT you really want to make sure you have one pup well-trained and manageable before you add another or else your older dog will simply teach your younger dog bad behaviours - better to go the other way around.

When I ran Albury Dog Rescue and I would get enquiries like yours I would firstly say that I wouldn't sell littermates and explain all the reasons why (listed above). I would explain how, before I knew better, I had done it and every single time, bar one, the dogs were returned or one was returned. Every single time the dogs were poorly behaved, untrained and very tightly bonded. I told people that if they wanted to adopt one pup from me now and come back in 6 plus months time I was happy to do it that way. Every single person who listened to what I had to say told me afterwards that they were very, very pleased I had said no and that they would now be waiting a couple of years before they got a second pup, had decided on an adult dog OR on having just one dog. The only time it worked was when I sold litter sisters and one was deaf - the other was her ears.

There are many reasons why people will recommend not getting two together. What are your reasons for wanting two together? Two puppies together is equivalent to more than double the work as you need to spend a lot of time training them individually, you need to teach them to be okay alone and two together tend to find 5 times as much trouble as one on its own. It doesn't mean that it can't be done but IMO unless you have two adults with the time to train and some relatively strong dog experience I wouldn't recommend it.

Oh I hope not Bilbo Baggins.

Sorry to hear that Becks.

Hanging out with my fatty - hopefully we'll have puppies this time next week BUT of course, being a dog, she will wait until the middle of the night when Steve has to work the next day so he can't be part of the action

Daphne at around 8 weeks of age before she came home to us... Daphne a couple of months ago making McKenzie feel better when she had a very high temperature - not sure why its sideways

I recommend the book Nowzad by "Pen" Farthing who was instrumental in setting up this rescue from the work he did with the compound strays when he was in Afghanistan, it is a very interesting story. He brought two dogs home (I think), one called Nowzad who was NOT a friendly boy to anyone but Pen. The lads of 5 Troop, Kilo Company, 42 Commando Royal Marines arrived in the war torn town of Now Zad in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan in November 2006. Their mission was to provide stability for the local people during a period of ever decreasing security. And as one of the Royal Marines – Sergeant “Pen Farthing” was soon to realise, it wasn’t only the local people that needed their help. For some of the many stray dogs of Now Zad they now had a guardian for the first time in their lives. Pen takes up the story….“When we first arrived in the town of Now Zad I broke up a dog fight that was taking place right outside our remote compound. What I didn’t know was that one of those fighting dogs would then befriend me! I couldn’t say no to those big sad eyes, the now very former fighting dog, became my buddy and found himself a name – Nowzad”. Soon the first ever dog warden of Now Zad, was looking after two more dogs “RPG” and “Jena”, strays that were very under nourished and didn’t look like they would survive the onslaught of the approaching Afghan winter. Unbelievably they then gained “Tali” who crept in under the gate carrying 6 little puppies followed by an injured “AK” bringing up the rear. And then to complicate matters “Jena” had 8 puppies as well – life was just a little busy at the best of times in the compound that the Marines called home for nearly three months in the heart of the Taliban tribal belt. In a quiet corner of the base Pen and two fellow Marines Dave & John built the dogs a modest dog run of sorts and for the dogs added safety they added on a mortar shelter to hide in, which luckily also provided some warmth during the extreme cold of the long winter nights. The dogs went from scavenging food one day to eating two decent meals a day courtesy of the left over military rations that the Royal Marines didn’t eat! Pen had already decided that he was going to try and get the dogs to a better life. But being stuck in the small town of Now Zad he had very limited communications with the outside world. With the help of his wife back in the UK they managed to track down an animal rescue centre in the far north of the country. The only problem was that the Royal Marines had to get the dogs to the safety of the rescue but they couldn’t use military transport as it was against regulations. As Pen explains “So the difficult task of persuading a local Afghanistan driver to take the dogs all the way to the rescue in the north – a journey of several days – began. Eventually we found a taxi that would take the dogs some of the way to Lashkar Gar and then they would be exchanged with another driver for the journey to Kandahar and then swapped yet again into another vehicle for the drive to the rescue. We had a few issues with this as we knew that the vehicles would be stopped by the Taliban at road blocks and for that reason the driver wouldn’t let us put the dogs in cages, (a very British thing to do – definitely not an Afghan method of transporting dogs), so we had to tie the dogs up with rope and put the puppies into small crates, (Jena’s puppies went into an old bird cage!), not something we were entirely comfortable with – but what else we were to do? I knew if the vehicle doors were opened without the driver paying attention then there was a chance one or two of the dogs would escape…” When the vehicle left for the epic journey carrying the dogs of Now Zad that had been, for the last three months, a source of comfort for some of the lads and had given them a sense of achieving something positive, the feeling of whether they had done the right thing was at the front of their minds. Not knowing what would happen to the dogs next was only slightly comforted by the fact that if they had left the dogs in Now Zad death would probably come sooner rather than later from starvation or cold. They might even have succumbed to one of the frequent attacks by the Taliban. Travelling to the rescue had at least given the dogs a shot at a safe and cared for life. It was something the Royal Marines were willing to risk. Living in Now Zad was no life for the dogs. Finally via a phone call from back home the lads found out the fate of the dogs; Tali, Jena and Nowzad and 13 of the 14 puppies had made the animal rescue. RPG and AK had escaped when the car door was left open. One of the puppies had been stolen. The Royal Marines’ celebrations were tainted with sadness. They had no idea where RPG and AK had escaped and there was no way they could go looking for them.