Two New Puppies
Introducing the two latest members of the Mason household namely Lucia (top picture) and Merlin.
They have joined our other two German Shepherds Mulder and Sacha.
The puppies are brother and sister, Lucia was the first to arrive in our home at 9 weeks of age, her brother Merlin joined us approximately 3 weeks later.
Following the loss of our beloved Bronwen last Autumn Keith and I had begun to mumble that perhaps it was time for us to acquire one more GSD puppy to complement our already existing family of two.
I contacted the breeder whom we had purchased our previous puppies from and she told me that a litter was due early February, and on this note I provisionally booked a female puppy.
We already own the sister of the dam that was due to have the litter and so had a strong indication as to the type of puppy ours would be. The day arrived for us to collect “Lucia” and we were pleased and delighted with her response on meeting us both.
However, there was a complication in so far as she had a brother! The litter had been small, only the two of them and he too was a delight. I tried to avert my husband's eye contact as I knew he was thinking as I was, “dare we take them both”.
We resisted temptation and drove home to introduce Lucia to Mulder and Sacha. Everything proceeded well and over the coming couple of weeks Lucia flourished.
Whilst talking with the breeder a couple of weeks later however, she told me that Lucia's brother was still at the kennels having had a very short spell with a family who decided a puppy did not fit in to their lifestyle and he was duly returned.
As soon as Keith and I heard the news we told her we would buy him and made arrangements to journey down and collect him a couple of days later. He was still a doll, but something had changed. He was shy and withdrawn and each time one tried to stroke his head he cowered down with apprehension and fear.
His tummy was grossly upset and his stools were dreadful, blood & mucus all classic of colitis type symptoms.
When I looked at his papers I realised that in the interim time he had been separated from his sister he had been given a 2 nd set of booster injections and clearly the colitis was the end result. Added to this the sad experience of being sold to a home that did not treat him well had exacerbated his problems.
Now commenced the long struggle of getting him well and in particular to get his stomach, digestive enzymes and the colon to work more efficiently.
Nutritional supplements, changes to the diet and lots and lots of tlc appear to be working and he is now a robust 4 month old pup with normal energy levels. To us it has been such a graphic testament to the theory that vaccinating very young puppies and kittens should be done with caution and not simply routinely carried out according to the age of the puppy.
Both Lucia and Merlin came from the same parents whom we have met, and they are both extremely robust, healthy animals and a credit to the breeder and both pups would have acquired a degree of immunity from illness from the parents and forebears.
However, due to the stark contrast of their formative weeks their health status has been extremely different and I sense that if Merlin had not been fortunate enough to have found his way to our home he would now be on the treadmill of anti-biotics and other forms of medication that would only exacerbate his symptoms and further adversely affect an already compromised immune system.
Further updates in approximately one months time.
