The bad news, and it’s bad enough, is that poor Adora lost her litter. She got pyo — pyometra, an infection of the uterus — and I had her spayed to protect her health. There are only two bright spots to this: first, I recognized what was happening immediately and her life was never in (much) danger. Pyo is potentially deadly, so that’s not something to take for granted! Dora was pretty miserable there for a week or so, but she’s recovering nicely now. And second, though about half the expenses of breeding her are a dead loss, the stud fee itself rolls forward; since she has a young ruby daughter to whom the Ringleader dogs are well suited, I can eventually use the stud fee that way. Presuming that Folly clears her health checks when she’s two. But she should, I’m not very worried about that, I have generations of clearances behind her!
The good news: Kenya, at least, is pregnant. Whew! Just had the ultrasound this morning. She has four puppies in there. If everything goes well, if they’re all okay — and you don’t have to tell ME that things can go wrong, good Lord, I’ve had PLENTY of experience with things going wrong — but if she DOES have four, that’ll be enough for me to keep one AND everybody who’s waiting can also have one. Here’s hoping they’re all girls — or at least three girls out of four — or anyway, please God, at least a couple of girls! She is due the day before my birthday. I can tell you, ALL I want for my birthday is four healthy, vigorous puppies. Girl puppies. Okay, okay, beautiful, well-marked girl puppies — I will get pickier and pickier once I see they’re all healthy!
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Poor Adora! I’m glad she’s recovering.
Does the spaying disqualify her for show, and does that matter at this point in her life?
We lost a pet Saturday, just found him lying there not breathing. Our daughter is taking it hard.
Wow, that’s tough, just having one die suddenly. I hope he was at least elderly and not a young vigorous guy in the prime of life? But even with an older pet, that’s a shock.
Yep, Adora’s out of the breed ring now — at least AKC. I can continue to show her in the CKCSC specialties, but I probably won’t, at least not until she’s eligible to show in Veterans. But! She is perfectly fine to show in performance classes, so I’ll most likely continue to put the odd obedience title on her. She has seven titles so far and she enjoys doing stuff with me.
He was 2.5, so young, but had a chronic respiratory infection. His nasal passages & sinuses were too small to work right. I didn’t expect him to be long lived, but didn’t expect him to go without any warning, either. That was the shocking part: there was no visible deterioration or change, like we’ve seen with the aged guys. His buddy was distraught as was our daughter (she’s better since the burial).
Ah well. Adora is recovering, and Kenya is both healthy and pregnant. I look forward to puppy photos eventually.
Glad you liked the Jemison duology! I took to it better than the trilogy which I didn’t finish. These characters made more of a connection with me. Even Ehiru. Jemison’s got a remarkable skill at making people who do some pretty awful things – like Ehiru – understandable and respectable on their own terms.
And when she sent the characters places she didn’t do boring travel :-).
It was a unique religion and world, too. It’s so good to see writers stretching like that. (Even when I don’t connect with the book.)
Poor guy. That’s way too young. A cat, I gather? His poor buddy. I’ve seen animals mourn for months after a companion died. The burial does help — at least for people.
Yes, the Jemisin duology is certainly on a more human level and in that way much easier to connect to. But I was drawn in instantly to all three books of the trilogy — though I wound up liking the third one least. Here I was slower to start, but wound up loving the books more and more as I went on.
My favorite line from the first book was: “You creep into houses in the middle of the night and kill people, and you see nothing wrong with it.” Yeah, that pretty much sums up the Gatherers. And yet . . . and yet . . . you just can’t help but sympathize with Ehiru and the others.