This is our little longhaired Daschund, Precious. We've had her since August of 1999, and we're not sure of her exact age. She was with her second family when we got her. She had belonged to a couple who had divorced, and somehow, ended up with the second family. They all worked, or were away from home, and she was left alone much of the time. We think that, perhaps, she had been abused when she was with the first family, having been in the husband's possession after the divorce My son Mike, who loves animals, begged the second family to sell her to him.When he brought her home, she was skinny, and undernourished, but she took to us, right away, and of course, we fell in love with her. I think she must have been at least a year or two old. She was out in the backyard, not too long after she joined our family, and we heard this terrified cry, and when we ran outside, we discovered that Weenie Dog, the neighborhood canine Lothario, had ambushed her from behind the corner shrub! She was pathetic, and scared out of her wits! After we managed to send Weenie Dog packing, we had to carry her around in our arms for most of the day, while she whimpered and cried at her misfortune!
I guess I don't have to tell you what the consequences of that day happened to be--pretty soon, she was obviously very pregnant. She had a hard labor, which lasted the whole night, from about nine in the evening, until around seven-thirty the next morning. She had a difficult delivery, too, needing a lot of help from me. She delivered five babies, and the very last one took a long time, and just seemed to hang there. Ironically, it was during the Presidential election, when they were counting all the votes down in Florida, and talking about "hanging chads," so you can guess what we named that last puppy! Yep! Chad!
Precious was not very infatuated with any of her babies, but she was a good mama, allowing them to indulge their appetites whenever neccessary, but I don't think she was too happy about it. She fulfilled her motherly duties until they were old enough to wean, and to be given away to good homes, but I don't think it could have been too soon for her!
We told Weenie Dog's family that if it happened again, we were going to have to go for child support, and they promised not to let him out of the yard again! It's the least we could do for our girl!
8 comments:
With all the critters we've had, we've never gone through childbirth. :)
Cute pup... funny story.
Well, actually, it was quite an interesting experience, but it was really hard on her.
She's a critter, too, and is very much convinced that she is another human, and expects to be treated like one...we're her slaves! :)
Our Miss Sassie Poodle had two litters before we had her spayed. She was a good mother..in fact too damn good. She would feed even when there was no need to and the pups drug her down to just fur and bone. She was just too good of a dawg to lose to a bunch of hard headed..but high dollar..pups
guyk...Precious had a second litter, too, and the same thing happened to her, except she ended up losing almost every hair on her body. It took awhile to get her back to topknotch health again, but when we finally did, her coat was even more thick and beautiful. I think that perhaps, her first owners didn't give her the proper nourishment and care that she needed. I know what you mean about the high dollar pups...we could have made a small fortune on her pups, but we just gave them to friends and family.
Our very spoiled border collie, Molly was spayed after her first heat. She is such a baby I don't think she would survive having babies of her own. She has semi adopted our three kittens whose mama died but if we are all in bed at night, Molly will snap at them and push them off the bed. She has her limits, LOL!
rockync..she sounds like a a spoiled little girl, too! Sounds like she still wants to be the baby girl around there! LOL
When my daughter was in 2nd grade, she had a pet cat named "Ieda" who lived in the house. By the time Elizabeth was a sixth grader, Ieda was unhappy and wanted out with the other cats, so we let her live outside. Tuesday night we brought Ieda back into the house and she'll have to live there now, because she's just too old and fragile to be out in the barn with winter coming on. That cat must be around 14 years old now.
hermit..I wonder if she will like being inside after being outside for her whole life?
She'll probably appreciate the warmth of the house as it turns colder.
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