No End of The World!

Well, I'm happy to say that the world hasn't come to an end. Or maybe, depending on your point of view of today's supposed events, it's proof positive of the overly warm place that I'll end up.;0) Either way, I do have to admit that it felt like I went to heaven for a few hours today!

I drove a little ways up north into Washington to go play with some great dane puppies!! Oh my goodness! The cuteness! The puppy breath! The ridiculous adorableness!! The breeder is Stacie Knudtsen of Knudtsen Great Danes and she was nice enough to let me into her home to play with Gabbie's precious babies.:0) I really have nothing but nice things to say about the litter and Stacie's dogs in general. I've already gushed plenty to Adam about it and it would really get quite ridiculous if carried on in that vein for too long in this post, so I'll keep it relatively brief (and here's where those of you who have been reading my blog for a little while roll your eyes at my version of "brief" ;0) ).

I started my visit by getting to crawl into the whelping box with them. They were just waking up from a nap and were a little groggy. After waking up they were more than happy to use me as a jungle gym. Lots of delicious puppy breath, lots of adorable puppy noises while they wrestled with each other, and lots of puppy cuteness. There was one girl in particular who had the most amazing eye contact. It was almost mesmerizing. It wasn't accidental and it wasn't challenging, it just was. There are adult dogs who can't hold a gaze the way that she did.

There was one girl in particular who stood out to me. She had basically every characteristic that I am looking for in our next conformation/performance puppy. Bold, energetic, and that something extra that really gets you. If she weren't already spoken for, I honestly would have told Stacie to put me down for that girl!

I should probably stop here before I go on about each individual puppy! In a nut shell, it's a fabulous litter that is going to make for some very happy puppy people!

After playing with the puppies I got to love on Gabbie and Gibbs, Gabbie's son from a previous breeding. They both have such great temperaments! Gibbs was obviously put off by the fact that they puppies were getting so much attention and used the opportunity to give me kisses and much snuggling while I was crouched down. He was such a cutie. And Gabbie was such a doll letting a stranger to her home come in and play with her babies. Very good proof of the wonderful temperaments that these puppies will grow up having.

All right, puppy gushing aside, I had a little bit of fun with Bess at the vet's office yesterday. We had a set of events that I think was actually set into motion by some ground beef that didn't sit well with either dog, that lead me to believe that Bess had pyometra. I'm a bit of a hypochondriac when it comes to my dogs, so it's no real surprise when I jump to the worse case scenario. It's totally understandable though when you have an intact bitch with greenish puss coming out of her vulva (and here is where I note that I thoroughly washed my hands AND changed into freshly washed and dried clothes that had never touched either of my dogs, once I got to Stacie's so as not to give anything to the puppies). It wasn't a lot, but when there's puss coming out of that region, the first thing that springs to mind is pyometra. It's a very serious problem and I know of one bitch who actually died from it.

I took Bess into the after hours vet once I got home from work. Adam had gotten home early that day and Bess had apparently had explosive diarrhea in her crate. And when I say explosive, that's exactly what I mean. It was all over the walls near the crate and everything around it. Gross. Earlier that morning I had seen one droplet of greenish puss coming out of her vulva, but Bess was otherwise completely acting like normal. I figured that I would just see how she was doing once I got home from work. After the diarrhea bit, I figured that this most definitely deserved a trip to the vet.

The vet swabbed her hoo-ha to see what she could find. There wasn't anything there to overly alarm her and send her to the assumption that Bess had pyo. If Bess had been acting off, not wanting to eat, running a temperature, or basically acting like she was uncomfortable, we would have done x-rays. The vet felt that it was most likely a vaginal infection brought on by her being at the end of her heat cycle. We decided to put her antibiotics and see if that cleared it up. If she seemed to be doing worse in the next 24 hours, then I would bring her in and she'd get an x-ray. If it was pyometra, emergency spay would have been my choice of action. It's not worth it to me to potentially endanger the life of my dog, in order to maintain the possibility of breeding her.

I'm happy to say that everything seems a-okay with Bessy. She's still her normal self and seems none the worse for wear. Heffner, unfortunately, is having some diarrhea issues that I believe are a result of the same ground beef that Bess had some of. It's been a bit of a crap fest in this house the past 24 hours!

I hope everyone is having a fabulous weekend!!