Thank you, Tammy!
I completely understand! BTDT!
They are all doing great! Have a look...make sure your sound is turned up.
BTDT???
Yes, Been There Done That, so I know how intense an experience helping pups to be born can really be. Will always remember the heat, the hard breathing and straining anxiety, the warm wetness and whining and first little desperate needy grunts. Incredible.
Sounds like humans as well..
Awww so cute 🥰
I could only hear the little buggers talking at the last.😊
Stay strong and carry on! I often find myself with animals who badly need rehoming, but I always end up taking them on full time. I wish you the best of luck with these animals and sorry to hear about your friend! Lucky to have fallen into your handsA close friend of mine, and member of my church, has had something horrible happen to her. 3 weeks ago she thought she had a stone bruise on her foot, but it became swollen and hot. So she called an ambulance and was admitted to a local hospital with a seriously infected foot. The short version of this story is that 2 days after admission she became septic, was transferred to ICU, was put into a medically induced coma, and 3 days later had her leg amputated mid-thigh to save her life. Until 2 days ago she was kept in the coma, but is now slowly waking, totally unaware of her new reality. She is 59 years old.
She has many pets, and her family is about 2-3 hours away, so 4 of us from church have been caring for her animals, along with her ex husband who stays here Fri, Sat, Sun, and Mon, then goes home for 3 days. The family has decided that something must be done with the pets, since we don't know when, if ever, my friend will be able to return. She has a very long road ahead of her, starting with getting well, then a prosthetic and all that entails. She could be gone a year easily.
So a couple of us have agreed to foster/adopt a pet or 2, with the understanding that if she wants them back, she gets them. My friend Lynn has a load of guppies and 3 (now 4--she bought a mate for a single male) zebra finches.
Last Monday I took in her bare--eyed cockatoo, Bird. Bird is fun since he talks a bit, almost continually yells "hey" when I'm not in the same room as him, and greets my pets when they walk into his sight with "Hi there...how are you?" His cage is as big as my bathroom! Adorable...yet eager to bite me at the slightest opportunity. 🕊️
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What I haven't told you is that the pets include 7 dogs--3 bull mastiffs, 1 neapolitan mastiff, 2 great danes (1 is very old), and a 6 month old puppy that's half mastiff, half dane.2 church members have been going to the house 3 times/day to let them out of their kennels, 2 at a time, to potty and be fed. It's quite a production to watch as the dogs thunder through the house to go to their outside enclosures. The situation is not sustainable; the dogs are in kennels 23 of 24 hours every day, and they are starting to fight each other from built up energy and frustration.
A home has been found for 3 of them. The puppy went yesterday to live with a family that has children. They all fell in love with him right away. This weekend a female mastiff is going with a woman who has 8 acres for her to roam along with her new resident siblings. And a female great dane about 3 years old is..........
IN MY HOUSE!!! 😂
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This is Ditsy, now renamed Petra. She is sweet, laid back, and already bonded to me. She's so happy to be outside where she can run! I just brought her home yesterday and she is fitting into my household smoothly. We had a meet & greet on Saturday with my dogs at a neutral location...it couldn't have gone any better. The usual sniffing, then just checking out where we were. We initially had some difficulty getting her in to the car, but she jumped right in for the return trip home. She got right into my car yesterday with no problem. She voluntarily goes into her crate for naps, and didn't wake me with her howling until 7:30 this morning. Not being house trained, I let her outside, she peed, and came back in to her crate to sleep again. She acts like she is starving and seems exhausted. An endearing action she does is to come out of her crate and come to me, and lays that big head on my arm while she stands really close up against my body. She seems to need that reassurance that I haven't gone some where, and that this wonderful change has actually happened!
So now my pet count is 3 dogs, 2 cats, a cockatoo, a blue tongue skink, and a Burmese Star tortoise.
The gates are closed...NO MORE!!
None of these dogs are neutered or spayed! They were acquired for breeding. Though I seriously disagree with "backyard breeding", my friend has no obligations to change things to the way I want them. I love her as my friend even though I disagree with this aspect of her life. If she ever decides she wants Ditsy/Petra back, she will get a spayed dog who will live a healthier, risk reduced life because of it. Her surgery will be done ASAP as there is a remote possibility that she is newly pregnant. At the same time, I will also have the stomach surgery done that prevents bloat, which is very common, and frequently fatal, in this breed.
The runt, the one at the very bottom right, wearing a dark green collar...when he was born Petra was still not doing her job. So I tore the sac, did the cord, and rubbed him. After maybe 30 seconds of rubbing, he still wasn't breathing. So I opened his little mouth and blew several puffs of air into him, and he started breathing! Talk about intense! So scary, but so rewarding!
I've been wondering about you. Merry Christmas 🎄
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A quick update on the puppies...all 9 of them are doing very well! They will be 3 weeks old on Friday. They've grown so much! All eyes are open, they play with each other, and they growl! And best of all to watch...they walk! Not very well though...4 feet are a lot to get coordinated and keep balance at the same time!
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Too cute.😊A quick update on the puppies...all 9 of them are doing very well! They will be 3 weeks old on Friday. They've grown so much! All eyes are open, they play with each other, and they growl! And best of all to watch...they walk! Not very well though...4 feet are a lot to get coordinated and keep balance at the same time!
Dropbox
Tammy, I've never seen a dog so obsessed with food! She's starving all the time, despite now getting 12, yes 12 cups of kibble/day spread over 4 meals. I'm afraid to give her more than that...huge meals are one of the triggers for bloat, the # 1 cause of death for Great Danes. She will be spayed next month and have her stomach tacked so the stomach can't twist over. Bloat just terrifies me!
