When I retired at the end of May, 2012, I decided the time was right to volunteer as a foster for a homeless dog. Our grandson spent the summer with us so I didn't think that was a good time to begin. He's 9 years old and gets my full attention:-). It's have to wait until he went back to California.
I got notification in mid August that there was a small terrier that they had thought was pregnant when she came into rescue but had found she was not. She needed to move out of her current foster home so that those fosters could take in another dog that was pregnant. I rushed over to get her, anxious to begin.
When I got there, I found a dog I was told was a 10 year old Toy Fox Terrier named Gidget. She was shaking like a leaf and afraid to come to me. I had a pocket full of treats and won her over by offering them. She'd come get the treat and then retreat to a corner. We made it to the car and headed home.
After a few days at our house, though, she quickly became comfortable, put our dog and cat in their places so they knew she wanted to be left alone, and ate like she was starving.
I noticed that she appeared to be pretty fat. Never having been around pregnant dogs, I didn't know if she was just "chubby" or if she might, in fact, be pregnant. I contacted the rescue and was told that we could wait a week or so to see if she was before we had her immunized.
A couple of weeks later, I took her to my vet who confirmed pregnancy and told me he thought she was going to have at least 4 puppies and maybe more. So, we went home and I spent the next couple of weeks reading everything I could find on whelping and raising puppies. I had tremendous support from several excellent breeders around the country including the breeder of my own 4 year old Cavalier, Brinkley.
My husband built me a beautiful whelping box and I hunted for all the things I'd need to help Gidget deliver the babies and raise them.
On September 19, 2012, Gidget gave birth to 5 beautiful puppies over approximately 6 hours. The last puppy, an all white girl, was a big surprise! Not only were we only expecting 4 puppies but all the others were predominately black with white markings. I named them after characters in the book The Hunger games. The white puppy, I named Prim.
The day the puppies were born had to be about the most exhausting day of my life. I spent the next week sleeping on the flor next to the whelping box and was so glad when I felt comfortable enough to leave them alone at night and went back to sleep in my own bed.
We had one scare when Gidget developed mastitis (on a Sunday) but all in all, everything went well. I had a lot of support from the rescue who answered all my many, many questions. As the weeks went by, I realized that I was developing a special relationship with the white puppy. Prim was a sold girlie. I called her my miniature pit bull. She has these bowed back legs and is very solidly built. She seemed fearless and I found myself hoping that no one would want to adopt her so that I'd have to keep her.
We did get a lot of interest in her from her listing on PetFinder. Finally I told my husband that I was thinking about keeping her. Originally I had felt happy that Gidget was a terrier as I am not a fancier of terriers in general. So when I found that I was falling in love with Prim, I was really surprised. Interestingly, my husband told me that he thought that she was the puppy that he had thought we might keep (she was not his favorite, however). So I told the rescue that we were considering keeping her. They immediately took her profile off PetFinder:-) They had my number.
So we became a 2 dog family again (we hadn't had 2 dogs since our 18 year old 5 pound stray-dog-that-stayed had died). Well, we are currently a 3 dog family as Gidget still hasn't found her forever home. She's such a sweet girl and very low maintenance but she really needs a home of her own.
Thus begins our journey raising another puppy. We had said when we got Brinkley 4 years ago that he would be our last puppy:-) We're getting older and the raising of a puppy is so much work we just didn't think we were up for it. Also, it becomes more of a concern if you outlive your pets. A great reason for us oldsters to adopt an older dog or cat!
I have been keeping a blog for Gidget and her puppies hoping that it would raise interest in adopting her. When the puppies were born, it became mostly about them and after we kept Prim, it has been mostly about the process of raising her. I began to realize that it needed to revert to being about Gidget and that I also wanted to keep writing about what I was doing with Prim, so I am beginning this blog for her. And, away we go!
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