Gypsy (Lovizza Moon Gypsy) presented us with a lovely litter of five kittens to our own boy Luis (Windymeadows Luis Garcia)
Some of the kittens from this litter are still available for booking.

 

Tim was one of the nine puppies born to Maggie on the 6th of October 2006.  One of the boys died soon after birth but all the others seemed to be fine, Maggie is a wonderful mother and looks after her babies with great care. All the pups were a similar size at birth but over the next week or so I noticed that one of them were a little smaller than the rest but thought no more about it as this quite often happens in a large litter.  When the puppies were about two weeks old, Maggie began to spend a little time away from them during the daytime and it was then that I noticed that Tim seems to be all sticky around his muzzle, I started to watch him more closely and found that milk was coming back down his nose and when it did so he was very stuffily.  Up to this point Maggie had been cleaning him when he did it and so I hadn't noticed the problem.  I rang Tom my Vet and discussed it with him and arranged to see him the following Wednesday.

Wednesday came and off we set with Maggie in the back of the car, as I had decided to take her with me for a check up and Tim in a little box with a hot water bottle.  Tom examined Tim and thought he may have a hole in his soft pallet, so we arranged for Tim to go in for an operation in two days time on the Friday.  

Friday came and off we set with Tim in his little box again. Tom told me he would operate on him at around 10.30 am and ring me with the news, I knew it was risky giving anaesthetic to such a young puppy but Tom explained that if it was a hole in his soft pallet he had to do the operation now or it wouldn't be able to be stitched together later because the tissue around it would have hardened too much.  I came home and as usual when I have any of my dogs or cats in the vets for an operation I couldn't settled to doing anything, Tom had said he would ring me around 11 or thereabouts, but no phone call came and by now I was getting anxious.  I decided to read my emails and found one telling me that I shouldn't have told anyone about Tiny Tim and that I should just have had him put to sleep, of course this email really upset me because I was already very worried if Tim had made it through the operation or not and to be told by an uncaring breeder that I should have had him put to sleep only made the whole situation that much more unbearable.  At midday Tom rang and apologised for not being able to ring earlier but Tim's operation had to be put back because of an emergency. Tom quickly told me that Tim had come through the operation well but that it was not a hole in his soft pallet as he had originally thought but that Tim's pallet should have been about 2.5 cm and was actually 2 cm, but then asked me if he could take him to the larger surgery to check his digestive system with a barium meal X-ray to make sure that he was digesting his food properly, of course I said yes as this did not involve the same risk as the anaesthetic had.  Mid afternoon Tom rang to say that Tim was digesting his food perfectly and he would show me the X-rays when I went to pick him up.  Tom also said that from what we had learned from the operation and the X-rays that he felt that when Tim moved on to more solid food he may be better, I had already been thinking along these lines myself.

A few days later I went to see Tom with another puppy who was due to have his vaccinations and I discussed the email with him, he was horrified that someone would have told me to put Tim to sleep and said there was no reason why Tim could not lead a normal life just like the rest of the litter and stressed that what he had found wrong with Tim was not a hereditary problem at all and in any case if it had been and could have been fixed with an operation then there would still have been no need to have him put to sleep.

Tom knows me well enough by now to know that any dog or bitch that I do not feel is as near to perfect as can be will NEVER be bred from and that we have far more dogs living here that are never bred from than we have that we breed from.

All I hope is that I never get to feel that a little life is not worth saving and that the people I choose for my puppies to go and live with will do everything possible to allow them to lead as happy and normal life as possible and do everything in their power to keep them healthy and happy no matter what problems may occur later in life.