Homes and Heartache

This is a picture of the puppy we call "Smokey". He is a charcoal gray color, Chad's favorite and hopefully going to live at his 4ever home with Pop.

This is "Scar", this was on the day he was born. The only thing left from his traumatic birth is a bump on his nose. The vet checked him today and said he would be fine. Our nephew is seriously considering making him a permanent part of his family.

The silver sable female was picked today by the grown daughter of a good friend of Chad. She will be going home in 2 weeks as long as she is ready. Her human mommy is excited to take her home. I think these girls will be great together!

Now for the heartache... This is the black female. She was the one that was born first, bottom first. I was so scared. I was home alone with just the kids and a laboring Abby. Oh my what an adventure. Luckily Chad made it home quickly. NOTE: she slept like this in my friends daughters arms for HOURS one night.

We started having suspicions that her vision was not what it should be... when we saw her walking into walls... my heart aches. We also noticed that she would not initiate a wrestling match with any of her siblings. She would respond to them only after they started it.

We took all the pups and Abby to the vet today for a check-up. He examined her eyes and closely compared them to those of her siblings. He said "there is a definite deficit". Her pupils are slow to react to light and he was not able to visualize her retina. He suspects it could have happened during development on the womb. There is a vessel that is suppose to become her retina and sometimes (tho not seen in his 28 years of practicing veterinary medicine) dosen't develop properly. OR it could be cataract, unlikely because she is only 4 weeks old. We got a referral to the eye clinic in SL and we will be taking her there to have further tests and a more definite diagnosis. We are hopeful that her vision will be able to be corrected with surgery ($$ in the thousands probably). She is so sweet and my heart aches for her. For now she may or may not be able to see shadows, unlikely. We will just care for her until we can get her better.

It was our decision to breed Abby, so her puppies are our responsibility. Just like if she had chosen not to feed them I would have taken over that responsibility also.

Every one of her puppies are special to us. We feel a sense of responsibility to make sure they all make it to 4ever homes and are loved and cared for. Even if they are not perfect.

Abby is doing well, still very underweight. It was recommended to us that we completely wean the puppies in order to give Abby a chance to gain some weight back. They are doing well on soft puppy food so I suspect things will go well. With most of the puppies teething in their back molars I think Abby will not be too sad about weaning the puppies.

All the puppies got a clean bill of health. Clear lungs, and healthy hearts.