As I said in my last post, the household has calmed down considerably since no one is in heat right now. See See is back with her brother/littermate Clyde and they can relax. Here are some pics and a short video.
Clyde and See See
Winston, Roz, and Daphne
Ever since the most recent heat cycles ended, the house has been calmer. Winston, now neutered, is fully acclimated to staying with Roz and Daphne, and See See is back with her brother, Clyde. Only a half door separates Winston from Clyde, but there isn’t anything to fight about anyway.
Johnny is back to eating well, and has stopped pestering his old spayed sister, Jane.
Winston, Roz, and Daphne spend some time just hanging out upstairs, in various combinations. Here are some pics.
Happy 18 month birthday to the Frasier litter! Born 1/11/2024
I hope to receive pics of the other puppies from the litter: Duke (Martin), Güenther (Frasier), and Zero (Niles) to also post on the blog. Even though they are 18 months old, they are still “puppies” because they are the youngest!
Johnny got bit by a copperhead!
I let Johnny and Jane out after eating last night, and a copperhead must have been right at the door. Johnny had gone out first, and I grabbed Jane and yanked her back in as I saw the snake. That left Johnny outside with the snake. I called him back inside, yelling loudly because he is losing his hearing. He came, and the snake went past him, slithering wildly into the grass.
I secured the dogs inside, and went back out (barefoot, I later realized) and grabbed the shovel. The snake had darted into a clump of high grass at the edge of the patio which had evaded my lawnmower a few days before.
I chopped blindly at the grass with the heavy, long handled shovel until I saw movement, then focused there until I was sure I had done damage. Only then did I get off the patio and finish it off.
My sister heard it all via speaker phone! I had been talking to her when I let the dogs out, and she heard some cussing!
I did not realize until this morning that Johnny had actually been bitten. It must have happened as he was going outside. His foot is really swollen, but he’s acting okay and eating. I gave him Benadryl and found the wound and cleaned it. He’s resting comfortably. He can walk on the foot, and it doesn’t seem to hurt much, despite the swelling.
The day before this happened, I had surgery, so I really was “chopping blindly.” My eyes were swollen half shut, plus it was dark out, with just the porch light on. Due to reduced field of vision, I had this type of surgery: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/8409-eyelid-surgery-blepharoplasty
My visual field should be much better in a few days, but the day after surgery is not the day to be out killing snakes. I do not recommend it!
Happy 4th of July!
Daphne’s 2nd Major win, Best of Breed over specials!
Daphne beat ALL the other German Shepherds at the show in West Friendship today! She got Winners Bitch, Best of Winners, and Best of Breed, beating 3 champions! I’m so proud of her!
Many many thanks to Kevin Brown who stepped up to handle her to the big win! I was in the same ring with Clyde as Kevin beat us with Daphne! And Kevin also did the driving, carrying crates, and kept me company. Kevin has heart!
And special thanks to judge Joy Brewster, who gave Daphne the win today. This same judge also gave my Johnny his first major win in 2019.
Before and after pictures of ear taping
A friend brought a nearly 5 month old puppy over for ear taping. A veterinarian had attempted to glue pre-made inserts into the ears. The puppy scratched the inserts out by the time they got home. Unfortunately, the glue had to be cleaned out before we could do the taping. Cleaning it out caused some minor inflammation, which delayed the taping for a few days.
Comfort is key to getting the puppy tolerant of the tape and the taping process.
Her owner will come back if the tape comes off. Otherwise, we’ll recheck them in a couple of weeks.
Two dumb things I did
If you’ve been reading my blog, you’ve probably seen Winston and Clyde together and happy. I generally had been letting Winston, Clyde, and SeeSee out together. They got along reasonably well as long as there was nothing to fight over.
Recently, Daphne was in heat when I took her, SeeSee, and Roz to a dog show. I made an effort to always put Daphne in the same crate so her scent would not be distributed among the other dogs. But I must have made a mistake and put SeeSee in Daphne’s crate, or maybe it was just using the same grooming tools on both of them.
Whatever I did, Daphne’s scent must have gotten on SeeSee because as soon as I put SeeSee and Clyde and Winston out together when we got home, Winston and Clyde started fighting over SeeSee. I had to break up a dog fight between two 90lb plus dogs. That is a recipe for a disaster. It’s really easy to get yourself bit or hurt doing that. I was really lucky I did not get hurt.
I ended up denting a stainless steel water bucket on Clyde’s head. Luckily, they did not seriously hurt each other. I checked them out thoroughly, and I only found superficial marks on them and some sore areas. No vet visit was needed. But here is a picture of the bucket:
After giving it a lot of thought, I decided to get Winston neutered. The only way I can keep him is to put him in with the girls. I don’t have a way to keep them intact and separated long-term. I’ve been keeping him upstairs, but I need to use that space when there is a female in heat.
So now Winston is neutered, and he is getting used to being with Roz and Daphne.
It’s never the dogs’ fault.
The other stupid thing I did was to allow SeeSee to get too hot playing fetch. (This happened last year with Clyde, too.) On a day that was unseasonably warm and very humid, when she hadn’t had time to acclimate yet, I was playing fetch with SeeSee, and I caught an odd look in her eye and decided to quit. She was panting too hard, so I put her outside with a cold bowl of fresh water. She didn’t drink. This is a huge red flag.
She couldn’t think straight. She began panting so hard I couldn’t count her breaths. I got ice packs, and that did not help fast enough, so I put her in the shower and sprayed her down with cold water for 20 minutes, but she kept panting really hard, and worse, having difficulty standing.
I finally put shampoo on her to help get the cool water down to her skin. German Shepherds tend to shed water easily, so the shampoo actually helped her cool down, getting the coolness of the water where it needed to go.
This did the trick, and we avoided the final stages of heatstroke, which can be fatal. At least she got a bath and got to air dry. (And so did myself, my clothes, and shoes.)
How stupid of me. I need to be more careful with exercising the dogs in the heat. Be careful everyone, it’s going to be a hot summer.
Are you interested in rescuing a young dog?
I participated again in a leg of a transport journey from an overcrowded shelter in the South to more welcoming shelters in the north. Here are some of the dogs I transported:
If you are interested in any of these dogs, please contact Charlotte Tran at www.animalsanctuarysociety.org in Mt. Laurel, NJ.
All are young and healthy, vet checked. Sweet temperaments. Easy to transport, they settled down after a few minutes of yipping.
Daphne Moon Out of Sight and Roz Doyle Out of Sight pro pics from latest wins!
See See’s Win Photo
I can’t believe how great See See looks in this picture! I’m so proud of her! I’m also proud of the fact that I put all the points on her myself, which is hard to do with all the really good competition and professionals out there. But I had a lot of support from my friends!
Thank you Vera Symonds for allowing me to breed my Jane to your Cash to get my beautiful See See and my Clyde.
Thank you AKC judge Brian Meyer for this major win!
Shepherd Sight 