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By Michele Wrath
Puppies
We are currently in the throws of a new
litter at SunnyOaks. This one has gone
according to plan, but they haven’t all
been that way.
championship was achieved, and so we
agreed that once we got home, Gwen
would be making a trip to Canada to
visit Bill.
The arrival of puppies
is always so exciting.
Some litters arrive like
a case study out of a
text book, with moms
who pragmatically go
about the business of
whelping and rearing
their pups. Others
have a flair for the
dramatic, in the best
of circumstances
providing the makings
of a great story
and in the worst of
circumstances, leaving
a trail of tears that fade
slowly over time.
Our first litter introduced us to some
of the challenges that Mother Nature
can present. Like most people who
start out in dogs, the path to the litter
box was not a given. We started our
search thinking we were going to
get a companion animal. That idea
morphed into a show dog, and before
we knew it, there were two. Breeding
was still not in the plan. The bitch we
started out with was small during a time
when the girls were big. I was a novice
handler and made all the mistakes that
novices make. Between her size and my
handling skills, the path to the coveted
CH was neither fast nor direct.
However, we persevered. My handling
skills improved, she matured, and at a
Specialty weekend in Las Vegas, Gwen
finished her Championship with her
third major win. She had also just come
into season.
By this time, I had warmed up to the
idea of having a litter. I’d researched
pedigrees, talked to stud dog owners
and found a dog that that I thought
might be “the one”. The stud dog
owner was at the show where the
The breeding went off without a hitch.
We made plans for the coming of the
puppies. Gwen continued to grow in
size, and one morning about 3 weeks
before the puppies were born, I decided
to put a bath rug down in the mudroom
for her to lie on. I thought this would
be a nice alternative to her crate, which
was becoming cramped as she grew
in size. The rug would provide a more
comfortable place to rest than the bare
tile floor.
When I got home that evening, the rug
was shredded. Gwen must have been
digging in it to make a nest. I swept
up the mess, tossed the remains of the
rug in the trash and we went on with
our evening. Three days later we were
relaxing after dinner and Gwen got
sick. We called our vet, and brought
her in for an appointment. They did
an x-ray and from what they could
discern, everything looked okay. I took
her home with instructions to feed her
small meals and monitor her.
I followed the plan, took her into work
with me the next day and everything
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