A fun day

Today, we were invited for lunch by very good friends. They had also invited another friend and her son, who we hadn't seen for 2 years now. It was a fun lunch, followed by a mini pug meeting :)

On this picture, you can see 3 generations of a pug family. In the front, fast asleep, you can see Momo. In the back, with a red harness, you can see her daughter Hanabi (our female pug). The biggest puppy, close to Momo, is Isami (one of our puppies, son of Hanabi and Hanzô) and the small one is one of Momo puppies (also with Hanzo).

Momo was originally bought off a pet shop as an impulse rescue, she was already 6 months old and the owner of the shop would probably have killed her in the following days if she hadn't been sold. She showed sign of bad treatment for months but is a very happy girl now, thanks to our friends. To this day, she gets sick almost every time she is in a moving vehicle and takes a lot of time to trust men.



This picture shows our 3 grown-up pugs: Hanabi, Mame and Hanzô. Hanzô is the first pug we got after getting married, he has the sweetest character you could dream of and we are now trying to find the breeder he came from to see his parents (we already found out he's coming from central Bohemia in Czech Republic). Mame was the weakest puppy of Momo's previous litter. He was tiny, skinny and had to stay at the vet for some time as a baby after respiratory problems. He's now the living proof of that Vet talent, as he is the strongest and liveliest pug ever seen by anyone we know. A normal pug should sleep around 16 hours a day, Mame wants to play 16 hours a day. Mame is also a sort of local star, he got featured in the cultural section of the regional newspaper after playing a role in an opera in 2006.


Here comes the result of Hanzô's first litters, 6 puppies alive out of 9 born from 2 females. 2 of our puppies got a nasty bacterial infection and couldn't be saved, one puppy from the other litter died for unknown reasons. The 4 top puppies are with Momo and the bottom 2 are with Hanabi.

Of those 6 puppies, 4 have already been bought before even being really advertised. We haven't decided yet what to do with our remaining two, as they both have a certain potential. We have already received a lot of interest in the recent visits to the vet, so finding them a good family living close to us shouldn't be too hard. His puppies have so much success that Hanzô has been booked again for next year :)

RIP Gozen

Gozen, our female puppy, died today at one month from kidney failure. She had been staying at the vet clinic for most of the week and was getting weaker by the hour. They decided to operate to check what was wrong and found out that one of her kidneys had been almost totally eaten away by something. The current theory is that her mother might have transmitted her a bacteria, and she couldn't fight it as she was already quite weak. It is also probably what killed her brother Shinkuro on week one. It is most certainly what caused her rapid weight loss and prevented her from gaining much weight to start with.


They took a sample of the damaged kidney and sent it for further analysis. Hanabi, our female pug, is now under antibiotics and intestinal flora supplements.

Pictures of the puppies

The remaining puppies are doing fine, their eyes and ears are already fully opened and they seem to react to movement now.

I finally got around to transferring some pictures to my machine, so here they come :)
From bottom to top, we have Benkei (male, 700g) , Gozen (female, 207g) and Isami (male, 600g). At this point, Benkei isn't doing much apart from sleeping and eating. Isami is already exploring the basket and its surroundings. Gozen doesn't sleep or eat much, but she has already explored a few rooms in the house. She often cries until picked up while the boys are sleeping.

Isami thinks he's John Travolta


Isami still thinking he's John Travolta

As soon as I'm done with the kikkogumi (might take some time as I'm busy preparing the new bedroom), I'll start braiding double-pickup harnesses (with their names) for the puppies.

Hectic weekend

Due to a sick puppy, I didn't get much braiding time this weekend. We had to go to the vet twice on Friday (afternoon and emergency in the middle of the night) and once on Saturday for several injections (glucose solution, electrolyte solution, antibiotics). The puppy will survive but she has lost all the weight she did put on the last 2 weeks. She spent most of the day feeding, we are taking that as a good omen.

The master bedroom has progressed a lot over the last week, the walls are finished, the ceiling fan/lamp is attached and I have started laying down the laminate. I think I will finish the room for next weekend, then we can change bedrooms. I will fix the shower of the en-suite bathroom at some later point.

Puppies

Last night, Hanabi (my female pug) gave birth to 4 puppies... a bit earlier than we expected!

I was watching a very interesting gardening program on BBC2 when I noticed a wet, bloody mess of a bag close to my leg. 2 hours and a half later, we had 4 puppies and we were all exhausted.

Surprisingly enough for a pug, she is taking care of the puppies by herself... she's managing all the cleaning, keeping warm and feeding without our intervention.

Back to puppy watch :)