Are Our Female Dogs Pregnant?

I think all our three females are pregnant! I'm getting excited but nervous because, how can we cope with all the litter when they do give birth on the same month? We will be selling the litter, but what if some are left behind with no takers? Even now, I have made a list of some friends who are ready to take in any puppy which we cannot sell. Fortunately, my children have a lot of friends who want to adopt puppies. Of course, we have to make sure they will be able to take care of them and love them too. I hate to think that they will be uncared for and abused.

We are keeping our fingers crossed and we hope that finally, we will be able to have a healthy batch of litters from our three bitches.

AIKO IS IN "HEAT"!

If you remember, the smallest dog that we have is Aiko. She is a shih tzu/pug mixed dog and though she looks like a puppy, she is now more than a year-old.

Four days ago, I noticed some blood droplets on the floor while I was cleaning. I thought it was either Yuki ( our female pit) or Sasha (our female labrador retriever) having a menstrual period. But when I checked, it's Aiko.

So the past two days, my son, Jason and I scouted around for a possible mate. Due to her size, we can only hope for a pure or mixed pug or shih tzu. There are a lot of pure pugs or shih tzus offering stud services, but because of their papers, they are reluctant to have their pure-blooded pets mate our Aiko. Though it is rather difficult, we finally found someone with a pure pug who is kind enough to offer his stud. And so, a week from now, we will be bringing Aiko to their place for their "mating" session.

I do hope she will be healthy enough to give us a litter. Yuki wasn't so fortunate, she lost her two pups in a premature delivery. We're keeping our fingers crossed.

Heroic Pit Bull: Dog Finds Help For Injured Neighbor

Today, I'm sharing this story about a heroic pit bull, with the aim to tell my readers that this breed has been misjudged unfairly. Pits are really good pets, and they make good house guards.

Move over Lassie. A pit bull terrier has shown Auburn's Jim Roach that heroic dog deeds don't just happen in the movies or on TV.

Roach fell from a 12-foot-high ladder while picking peaches last month on his rural Mount Vernon Road property. Dazed and unable to move because of his injuries, he soon found renter Jeanne Davis' two-year-old pit bull Gabby hovering over him and
barking.

"I was unconscious pretty much," Roach said Tuesday. "I remember a dog licking the side of my face and standing by me and barking and barking and barking."

But nobody came. That's when Gabby did the heroically unexpected and went for help.

About 100 yards away and not able to see or hear Roach, Davis heard Gabby furiously barking and thought perhaps someone had entered the property. But Roach's dog, also nearby, wasn't barking.

Soon after she first noticed the barking, Gabby emerged.

"She's barking and then she looks at me and runs back," Davis said. "It's kind of like something Lassie would do."

So Davis followed Gabby. She found her landlord injured and moaning in pain near the pruning ladder.

"I walked over to where he was and Gabby stopped barking," Davis said.

With Roach immobilized on the ground, a California Highway Patrol helicopter was dispatched to transport the seriously injured college instructor to Roseville Medical Center's trauma unit for emergency treatment.

Roach, a College of San Mateo instructor, said doctors diagnosed multiple injuries from the fall, including a fractured clavicle, four broken ribs, two cracked vertebrae, and bleeding on the brain.

A towel wrapped around his head, Jason Williams-style, probably saved his life when his head hit the ground, Roach said.

Roach said he spent a week in hospital. One of the first visitors after discharge was Gabby. He said the two now seem to have formed a strong bond as a result of the rescue.

A psychology instructor, Roach said that the incident is a good example of the more endearing side of pit bulls that doesn't receive media attention.

"I've never felt they've been given a fair shake," he said. "They're just a terrier."

Davis said Gabby was abused before she adopted her. She's been training the dog to become less apprehensive around people.

"A lot of people said to put her down, that she's going to do something bad," Davis said. "I'm so proud of my dog."

(By Gus Thomson, Journal Staff Writer)

From Dogs at Risk USA web site

No Appetite

The past few days, my dogs seem to lose their appetite. We feed them twice a day with dog food but they seemed to lose appetite. So we tried feeding them with table food, and they ate a lot. To give them nutrition, we sort of give them alternate diet, dog food and table food. Now they got tired of the diet again!

Can anyone give me a suggestion on what to give them? They like bread but I know it's not nutritious to just feed them on bread alone. What is the most effective vitamins to give them, ours do not seem to work.

Any suggestions please?

She's Okay Now!

Sasha is okay, the swelling is gone and she already opens her eyes. I guess an insect bit the area near her eye because there are some rashes there. Thankfully, she is up and running again. The antibiotics helped and I think the hot and cold compress also stopped the swelling.

Sasha is sick!

Yesterday, we noticed that Sasha was always sleeping, which is not normal because she is a very hyperactive labrador. We thought she was just tired of fooling around with the rest of our dogs. Then last night, we noticed that she could barely open her right eye, and the top of her head was swollen too. So we applied an alternate hot and cold compress on her.

When I woke up this morning and checked on her, the right part of her face is already swollen and she could no longer open her eye. We made her take an antibiotic and if the swelling continues, we will be bringing her to the vet this afternoon. I really hope that this is not a major problem and I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Dogs here...Dogs There... Dogs Everywhere!

We went to my sister's place yesterday, to greet her a very Happy Mother's Day, and we were greeted by her ten (10) cute dogs, but my son was only able to take pictures of the two of them, a mixed poodle and a japanese spitz. There were minipins, terrier, and dachhunds. You see. love of dogs really runs in my family!

Sasha

This is Sasha, our two-year-old labrador retriever. She is so sweet and good-natured, but she bit the niece of our helper who came inside our gate without our knowledge. She always lies down whenever you caress her.

Aiko and Yuki

Foster Daughter is Leaving

The pitbull puppy is leaving us next week. The owner will be picking her up any time next week and I'm sure, we will all be affected. For the past few days, we have learned to love the cute little one.

I'm sure I'll miss the feel of small fangs on my feet when I watch TV and she plays with them.

I will miss her presence on our bedroom door as she tries to sniff the air-conditioned air through the small spaces of the door.

I will miss her little presence on the bathroom door where she usually sleeps and jumps up to sneak into the bathroom when somebody opens it. She likes to splash herself with water and I even caught her standing on her hind legs washing her face on a pail of water. We just have to make sure it's closed all the time.

Counting on the pairs of cut slippers, I will miss buying new slippers again. Without her, we will still be wearing our old ones.

God, I will really miss this small bundle of joy!!!

Yuki's Adopted Daughter

This is the pitbull puppy which is left to us by my son's friend. Having lost her own litter due to miscarriage, Yuki is now playing foster mother to the puppy. She is the third generation sister of Kiba.

Miscarriage

Yuki had a miscarriage last Monday, April 14. She gave birth to two premature puppies. It was a very sad moment for us because we were so looking forward to see her first litter. Right now, she's okay, she is starting to be herself again. The vet said that next time she gets pregnant, we have to put her inside the cage so she couldn't play rough with the other three dogs.

I'm posting here a photo of Yuki. One of the puppies was also white while the other looks like Kiba.

SLUMBER

My sons had a field day the other day because one forgot to lock the gate and out went the three dogs. I ran after Aiko and because she is small, I easily caught up with her.

Kiba, our big pitbull, started to run after Sasha but when he was called back by my younger son, Jonathan, he went back home.

Sasha, our labrador, ran all the way to the next street and into a small alley and no matter how hard my eldest son called her, she kept on running, glad that she was free. So the two boys went after her and after a very long chase, they finally cornered and caught her. For this, she was put inside the cage for a whole night so she could learn a lesson. Well, I wonder if she did though. This remains to be seen.

And where was Yuki, our female pit, during the commotion? Well she merely looked at how things were and then she lay down to sleep.

Sorry I wasn't able to update my blog for the past week. I am not really feeling well due to a sudden attack of hypertension. And, I'm waiting for my son, Justin, to upload the photos that I took of my dogs. I really want to share them with you.

Besides, it's the graduation day of my youngest and only daughter so I'm quite busy. Perhaps tomorrow, I can finally write a new post here.

Have a nice day. Don't forget to give your furry friends a long bath. It's summer and the heat is intense.

In Loving Memory of Sheeba

We have cherished this picture of our dog, Sheeba. She's just an "askal" or a mutt ( "askal" meaning "asong kalye" or street dog without breed ) but we still loved her. She died three years ago after doing a heroic act of love.

I still remember how Sheeba saved my father-in-law that day. It was a weekend and usually, we wake up late but on that particular Saturday, I had to wake up early because my oldest son had a school activity and so I had to prepare breakfast for him. As I was doing my chore, I noticed our Sheeba yelping and scratching on the door of my father-in-law's room. I told him to stop but she didn't obey and kept on barking and scratching, as if she wanted me to open the door.

My brother-in-law woke up and tried to open the door which he thought was locked because when he pushed it, it didn't budge. He carried Sheeba from the door and told her to shut up but the dog leaped from his grasp and again went to the door and barked while scratching it. So he tried pushing the door harder and saw my father-in-law lying on the floor. He was unconscious and when I checked his blood pressure, I realized he had an attack. We immediately rushed him to the hospital and the doctor said that if we had delayed, the attack would have been fatal. He still cannot move his right hand until now.

That day, Sheeba saved him. My father-in-law stayed in the hospital for ten days. And a week after, Sheeba died. We brought her to the vet but he didn't see anything wrong with her. She just did not like to eat and grew weaker everyday until she died on her sleep. My daughter and I cried for days. I vowed not to have dogs anymore but as you probably know, I now have four! Still, I terribly miss her.....

Our Very Cute Princess...AIKO

I gave her a slice of bread and the next time I looked, she was already fast asleep with an unfinished portion of the bread in her mouth!




This is AIKO, our one-year-old pug/shi tzu. She's very sweet and so playful.

Yuki is "expecting"!

We are all excited! Our female pitbull, YUKI, is expecting her first litter. The father is of course, KIBA. I hope that there will be one brindle puppy though because I really miss KOGA, our first pit that died two years ago. I will surely keep it, while the rest of the litter will be up for sale. At the moment, we already have two (2) reservations, and already, more are inquiring. We're trying to give her all the supplement that she needs during this stage.

Wish us luck!

Leader of the pack...KIBA

My first post will be about KIBA, our one-year-old male pitbull. We bought him as a birthday gift for my youngest and only daughter because she was grieving over the death of her first pit, KOGA. He was the second to the largest pup among the litter. Before Koga, I was against buying and having a pitbull for a pet because I've watched a television news about two pitbulls attacking people and one even died because of the attack. Pitbulls, they say, are for fighting. Now, I think it is just a misconception. KIBA proved them wrong. He is, in fact, very sweet.

Friends, meet the leader of the pack.... KIBA!