An Interesting Weekend

Saturday we had a friend over to share a barbeque and socialize puppies. After catching up on news and talk, while I finished up cleaning the puppy enclosure and rearranging things so Freya could have a dog cave, we decided to watch Tron Legacy. It had just started to rain and about 10 minutes into the movie, lightning took out the power.

No biggie, we pulled out the hurricane lamps, and just talked and played with puppies. The power was out for over two hours, and I started up the grill. We pulled up chairs in the shed and out of the rain while I prepped the grill and cooked the steaks. We had a great time just chatting.

The power came back on just before the steaks were done and in time to cook and prepare the side dishes. So it worked out pretty good. We ate around the dining room table, and then sat down to watch the movie. We all had a great time.

Sunday I was out doing my chores in the dog yard when I heard some screaming and the roar of a big dog. It sounded as if someone was being attacked, so I dropped the bucket and scraper and ran to help. The screaming died down and did not sound like cries of pain, but my mind was already engaged. Stopping only long enough to pick up a hefty stick, I reoriented and continued on through briars, across barbed wire fences towards the sound calling out to see if the people were ok.

Just over 1/4 mile I came upon a couple of ladies that had been walking their dogs. They said they were ok but their dogs had jumped a deer and they had tried to get them to stop attacking it. The deer got away with some mauling by the dogs across the creek and was resting in a gully. They thought it might be a female birthing. From across the creek I could see it had antlers just budding in velvet, so knew it was more than likely not a birthing female.

I also saw there were patches of fur missing in what looked like older wounds as if it had been dragged on an abrasive surface, so I knew the deer had been wounded prior to the dogs attacking it. I surmised it was probably recovering from being hit by a car or truck and was either still suffering wounds or was sick from infection.

By then my husband came around in the car and he had brought his gun in case. I backtracked to the bridge so that I could get a closer look at the deer, but was unable to get really close before it jumped up and attempted to run from me. Watching it move it was obvious there were no visible broken bones in its legs, though its nose may have suffered some damage from the dogs. It was unable to climb the far bank, but kept trying. Not wanting to overly stress the deer out, I backed off hoping he would bed down again and recover enough to survive. His wounds did not look fatal, though the nose worried me. He may have problems eating. I didn't see him this morning, but will try to track him down tonight to see if he made it, and/or if he can eat. If not, it may be kinder to put him down.

Teefers!

The puppies were moved to the kitchen Saturday to give them more room to move around. It also makes it easier to keep their area sanitized for their health.

At the direction of our vet, the pups were given their first dose of de-wormer at two weeks. I really think this new protocol has made for some very pudgy and healthy puppies, or it could be just that Freya is providing far more milk for four than she was able to for six?

This morning I felt teeth when I spent a while in with the puppies gnawing on my fingers. Freya has become more restless and wanting to spend time away from them when they are sleeping now. So it will soon be time to start supplimenting her nursing with moistened food and puppy formula.

Sunday morning I took Bandit and Yukon for a 3 mile bikejor, much to their delight. It was 32 degrees, and they loved the chance to run. After getting back, they got their frozen meat patty, a rub down massage and each of their paws examined and rubbed.

While out on the trail, I watched carefully how Bandit and Yukon ran. While incredibly fast and strong, Bandit ran much like a cheetah, using his back as a coiled spring, while Yukon's back stayed relatively straight. When we got back, Yukon seemed more winded, although this could be simply that Yukon is four years old and Bandit is one and a half.

Sunday evening, just before I gave Bandit his medicine at 7pm, he was lying on the floor with his eyes dialated and heavily panting. Though he didn't go into a grand mal seizure, he exhibited some of the signs such as he didn't seem aware of his surroundings. He came out of it in less than twenty seconds with only a slight disorientation and then back to normal within five seconds. I immediately got him his medicine.

Monday morning, he did nearly the same thing at 7am, only he must have gone slightly into a seizure, though not fully grand mal. He only lost bladder control a little, but did not flail around. It lasted less than half a minute including the ictal phase. Both episodes were at the valley point of his meds, so this leads me to believe he is epileptic and not something that can be easily cured if at all. Though I logically knew he would probably need medication for the rest of his life, emotionally it finally sank in, and I knelt next to him and held him tight promising I would take care of him and wishing that I could make it all go away.

At least it seemed as if the medicine was helping control the seizures and it may simply need tweaking to prevent even the slight episodes. I've read where other dogs have been able to live full lives and be sled dogs, hiking dogs, and therapy dogs even through their epilepsy. So at least I know I can still allow him to run the dryland circuit and maybe eventually snow races that are one day heats as well. I know we will probably not be able to do any longer camping races with him, but I think he is happiest doing sprints anyway so he can really stretch out and run. In that way I know he will be happy, as he was born to run!

Back to School

Princess and I are back in showmanship classes, preparing for the spring and summer show season. Our first show this year will be the Siberian Specialty in Cleveland in April. Keeping to one show a month, the next will be Kingsport Tennessee in May. She so loves the attention!

I've also decided to go for my AKC certs to show Siberians, and may do that for other folks on weekends I'm not showing Princess. We'll have to see how that pans out. I'll be talking to some other professional handlers to see how they normally operate.

Princess is sleeping in her crate, as Freya was whelping pups and she just had to be in the room with me. One more week and she'll be out of heat, and our home will return to a slight semblance of peace if not normality. With 4 pups just opening their eyes and beginning to walk unsteadily on all fours, it will be anything but normal. I'll probably be moving them to the kitchen by the end of the week.

They are growing so fast! This litter seems to be growing even faster than the last one. They are already developing distinct personalities, and I can tell at least two of them are going to be a bit headstrong. It will be interesting to see which becomes dominant.

Bandit has been doing well, and even though the meds have not had enough time to build up to a theraputic level in his bloodstream, he has not had a seizure since Monday morning. It is still a bit early to get our hopes up though. I think we are fortunate that our pack is so well adjusted and taught non-aggression. None of the dogs have been aggressive towards him when he's gone into seizure, in fact just the opposite, they were trying to lick him even though I had to shoo them away. Reading about other people's seizure dogs, I think we've been very fortunate in this respect. It could have been very terrible otherwise.

The only side effect so far has been that Bandit has gone into libido overdrive. With two girls in heat (Ace finally went in to full heat at 16 months, which is a relief to us that she was simply a late bloomer), he has become nearly frenzied in his attempts to mate them. Fortunately the new door-gate has stood up to his 70 lbs of muscle and determination. Yay for rennovations. He's normally such a good boy, very gentle and loving. He still is, but his mating frenzy is rough on all of us. He's not so bad when I'm in the room with him, but I can't stay there all day, and he has to go out as well.

Change-over from girls to boys confinement is a challenge as he attempts to grab and mount (no more courtship for him!) as soon as a girl is in reach. Poor Ace had to be rescued from his grip twice. He's a big boy and very determined. Good thing I'm more hard headed and twice as big as he is. In a couple more weeks we will take him to the vet to have his pb level checked, and I'll ask them about detox herbs that others have used to help keep the liver and kidneys from toxic buildup from pb.

Rough Weeks.

It has been a rough two weeks caring for newborn pups, two girls in heat and if that wasn't difficult enough, Bandit has had three more seizures over the weekend. I thought we had this nipped in the bud, but apparently we were wrong.

My beautiful marvelous leader dog in training. It is heartbreaking to have so much hope and promise in a dog and then have your dreams blasted from the water. This will mean we will need to have him neutered as we submit him to a battery of tests that is sure to be traumatic for him as he is still kind of shy even though he is a very gentle giant of a Siberian.

I can't help thinking if there was something I could have done differently while raising him to prevent this. Only time and a diagnosis will tell us that. His brother Bucky seems uneffected by whatever malady ails Bandit. But he was born monorchid which makes me question the whole line.

One thing is for sure, there will be no more litters until we know for sure. Jim spoke again to our vet and when they did a full blood workup on him there were no signs of disease, thyroid imbalance or other known identifiable cause by bloodwork, so by the research I've been able to do so far, we are left with bone spur, tumor, or genetic disorder. We will probably be putting him on meds this week to control his seizures, and proceed with diagnostics as time and money permits. I have found a seizure research group for dogs, and since we own both parents and a sibling still, we may submit DNA samples to further their research. So even if we aren't able to cure him, at least we can help the larger community.

Puppies

Once again, Freya has delivered some very stunningly marked puppies on March 16th. There are 2 dark gray, black and white, one black and white, and one red and white, all females. I guess on the even years she has boys and the odd years girls?

In honor of John Baker's incredible and historic win of the 2011 Iditarod, Jim wanted to name them after dogs on John Baker's team. He only found 3 he liked though, so we came up with a fourth name. The one in the pic to the left is Kona.

River

Velvet

Sahara (non Baker name)

Two of this litter are spoken for and all will be conformation evaluated at 6 weeks. All have had dew claw removal and worm preventative administered to Freya under vet direction (new procedure :). This will prevent any worm transfer from mother to pup, and the pups themselves get their first deworming dose on the 30th of this month.

Sunday night sometime around 1am, Princess whined and kicked up a fuss, waking me from a dead sleep. She normally sleeps through the night and doesn't want out, but I figured since we have gone to an odd schedule of cat napping she had to go. So, getting up and getting dressed, I prepared to take her out for a short walk when I noticed Kona had somehow gotten out of the whelping bed and was sound asleep on the carpet. I picked her up and put her back beside Freya and Princess immediately went back to sleep.

The puppies, though were still fussing, yipping and yowling as my sleepy brain was processing the information. It occurred to me that Kona seemed awful comfortable all stretched out on the carpet, but was not at all pleased having to try to curl up next to Freya or her siblings.

So I got back up, went to the shed and got a clean tarp, cleaned a space on the floor to spread it out, moved the old pillow and two puppies on to it to get Freya to move, then moved the fluffy bed with the other two puppies still on it. I then re-did the fence to surround the new area. The puppies and Freya slept soundly the rest of the night. Too bad that was only two hours for me.

Worry!

Freya is big, with 4 big puppies, she is uncomfortable most of the time, and needs to relieve herself every hour and a half to two hours. Her temp has gone down to 98.8, but she has not yet started labor. Every once in a while she'll go hide under the porch instead of come back in after going potty in the back yard. So we have to go get her in so she doesn't whelp in the dirt.

If that isn't enough to worry about, while I was checking the leaderboard on the Iditarod site, I heard a commotion in the bathroom, and saw Bandit move in an odd way out of the corner of my eye. Thinking Yukon and Bandit might have gotten in to a tussel, I yelled "Stop!" before focusing my full attention on what was going on. Immediately my heart leaped into my throat as I realized what was happening! Bandit had gone into a full on seizure and must have tumbled into Yukon who growled his displeasure then ran out!

His back arched, his neck straining back and flailing, and his legs stiff and flailing, I feared the worst! It was so sudden! I wondered if he were dying in my arms as I cradled and held him down so that he wouldn't hurt himself. I spoke to him softly "I got you, you're a good boy. I'm here." Over and over I repeated that mantra as I held him.

It was over as suddenly as it began and Bandit stared up at me with wide frightened blue eyes. I held him to me, petting him and telling him he was a good dog and it was okay now. Eventually he caught his breath and began to relax and realize whatever had just happened was over. Just as quickly as that, he got up, ran outside to pee, and started playing with Bucky. I kept a close eye on him the rest of the day, checking up on him every 15-20 mins. At night, I checked him every time Freya needed to go out.

Freya's Prenatal

And the word is 4 big puppies. Hope she has no trouble delivering them. Her 63 days is due on March 17.