Taking my Dogs for a swim

I live next to the Chukai river in the swamps and I have a small boat which I can just push to the river when I in the mood for some fun on the water. My faithful dogs can almost read my mind all the time. They will happily wait for me to push the boat down. The dogs love to go for a swim. Even if I dont go in they will just disappear to the swamps and bark at the monkeys around.First they will hang on by the side of the river. They seemed to be looking at me and plead to get into the small boat. The answer is always NOOnce I am on the water they will swim around the boat. This is sort of a warm up for them. Normally they will bark excitedly as I paddle away.Seems to be saying "Hey wait for me lah"In a way I am very happy to have such a pair of faithful dogs. Nobody in my family likes to follow me to the river except for the dogs!

We have got a litter of German Shepherd Puppies !

I have always thought that breeding quality pedigree dogs will be another form of passive income. After all I have a big compound and I do require the services of good guard dogs to deter undesirable elements from getting into our compound. I had been having Labrador Retrievers for many years but they are not guard dogs so I switched to German Shepherd the last few years. I found German Shepherd to be almost the perfect dog for the family. They are highly intelligent, loyal and obedient. Normally my dogs are gentle and socialise well. However , they can be very protective and in our absence very fierce!This is MATA our male dog . He is big, strong and friendly and also a very good guard dog. When our bitch CIKU was on heat last season, he was the hero and the champion for after several weeks we got a litter of beautiful puppies.On 7 July 2010, CIKu gave birth to a litter of 10 healthy puppies. I spoke to a professional dog breeder who had been my mentor on breeding dogs and he told me this is "beginner's luck"!. He told me it is extremely difficult to mate German Shepherds. I can vouch this for I had been trying to mate CIKU several times without success, each time paying a big sum of money. That is why I consider my dog MATA to be the champion! These puppies were very cute and I can see the big bones in them. This photo is taken at 2 days old .

At two weeks old these puppies are beginning to show their true colours..alert, intelligent and active.
Of course they still need their mother's protection. CIKU has been fiercely protective of her puppies. Even MATA gets bitten when he tries to get near the puppies.

However, CIKU does not mind anyone of us in the family to handle and play with her puppies.

This photograph is for CIKU's family album.

The puppies are offered for sale to good homes. Readers of my blog will get a discount if they quote my blog when coming to purchase a puppy. This is a chance for dog lovers to own a good dog with a long history of excellent temperaments and intelligence.

WE HAVE DECIDED THAT PART OF THE COLLECTION FROM THE SALE WILL GO TO AN ORPHANAGE.

My Shih Tsu dog is now blind!

Three days ago my wife noticed some blood on our veranda and remarked that our Shih Tsu bitch could be on heat. I went around the house to look for her so that I can isolate her from the other dogs.When I found her to my horror I saw her eyes dangling out of the socket! I yelled to my wife to call our vet immediately to do whatever I can to save her sight. There had been a similar incident like this a few months back when I was away in East Timor. I felt very sad and helpless!This Shih Tsu was purchased by my wife last year and when she came home i noticed that it had weak sights and also bad hearing. Googling on the Internet shows that this breed of dog tends to have bad sights and hearing. As a result of its bad hearing I nicknamed the dog "STUPIT" because it does not respond unless we shouted. Over the months STUPIT grew very attached to me and my daughter Alicia. Although it was their dog, I was the one doing the feeding and trimming to make her look pretty.

Seven months after the arrival of STUPIT to our family I decided that we needed another guard dog as our Alsation bitch CIKU seemed a bit lonely and needed a mate. So MATA, an Alsatian puppy was bought. STUPIT was the elder sister to MATA and they get along fine, always involved in some dog plays. They were just like brother and sister.

MATA grew fast and in no time it became a huge dog . The doggy plays continued. One of their favorite plays was STUPIT trying to bite MATA's mouth. Very often the whole of STUPIT's small head was inside MATA's head. They can play like that for hours and kept each other entertained. My other Alsation bitch CIKU would never join in their doggie play. On the night of the incident I believed MATA could have applied a little bit of extra force and it s teeth could have bit the eyes. I believe this is how my STUPIT sees the world now.......Dark. We have to cage her so that she does not get sand into her eyes . The first two days she would be still wondering around and bumping into obstructions but today she just sits when she is out of the cage. Poor thing!

As the head of my family I had to gather everybody together and talk about responsibility. During this period we have to show extra love and affection to the poor dog. Are we going to abandon one of our family members just because he/she becomes disabled in an accident? Th e answer is NO. Alicia is trying her best to cheer the dog. Right now she is playing the piano with the dog underneath. But as I had mentioned earlier her hearing is not too good as well but she does seem to treasure the moments under the piano. I can see her limp ears tweaking a little at a time What a dog's life she had. I am very disappointed. I hope STUPIT recovers and be happy again even though I know it may be impossible.

She may never be able to be accompanying me like she used to but I hope her other senses will grow stronger.

Question: What would you readers have done in a situation like this? Please comment generously!