Hi! My name is Silver Lining and I'm a 6 year old teacup poodle. Well, I was supposed to be a teacup poodle. My breeder told my Mom and Dad that I would only be 4 lbs when I was full-grown. But here I am, 10.5 lbs, so they always laugh and tell me I'm there "teaPOT" poodle!
I have 2 sisters who are also teacup poodles. And since I am not very good at typing, I told my Mom that she'd better take it from here and tell our story...
Hello there! I'm Silvie's Mom, Pamela, and her Daddy's name is Kelvin. And as you can probably tell by now, we love tiny poodles...Well, actually, we love ANY dog. We've had West Highland White Terriers before and we just lost our last two Bichon Frises a couple years ago, much to our great sadness. Wonderful dogs--all of them--and it is always hard to let them go when the time comes...
I have bad allergies and asthma so we always look for dogs who are supposedly "hypo-allergenic." I'm not really sure that any dog is, but all the ones we've had so far do not shed and do not leave a lot of doggie dander around to irritate my problems.
LITTLE RUGRAT:
Computer Painting courtesy of Buddy's Mom
Little Rugrat passed away today, March 27, 2007. She died in her Mommy's and Daddy's arms, after having become very ill for 2 or 3 days.
I will keep her story up here, for those who may also have dogs with both Congestive Heart failure and Renal failure. So that they will know it is possible to still care for these dogs and love them, until it is really their time to leave us. Here was her story:
We first got our Little Rugrat when she was 7 months old. She came from a breeder in Montana. Tiny girls like these are not so easy to find, as we quickly learned. And we also learned the hard way, that not all breeders are good at what they do. I'm sure many of you reading this have had similar experiences.
We found out much later that this breeder in Montana was really running a puppy mill and our beautiful little black poodle paid the price of that many times over.
By the time she was 14 months old, she had very bad "luxating patellas." Have you heard of that before? The groove in the knees (usually the back legs) is not deep enough, so the patella slips around. And this poor baby had to have major knee surgery on BOTH her back knees at the same time.
It was heartbreaking. She went through SO much for such a tiny thing, learning to walk all over again. We used to have to "swim" her in the bathtub every other night, as physical therapy to try to get the legs working corrrectly again. And we had to do other physical therapy on her, too. It took a good 4 months for her to recover, but now, thank heavens, her knees are fine and we gave her a chance for a happy life, or so we thought.
When we first got her and our vet checked her out, she had a very slight heart murmur and our vet told us to just ignore it. She was fine.
But sadly, as Ruggie got older, the murmur got louder and louder and she began coughing a lot. After several tests, we learned that she had an enlarged heart. The murmur indicated that there was a leaky valve somewhere which made the heart grow larger.
Last summer, things came to a head when Kelvin and I left our girls in the hands of very good pet sitters (ones we had used many times before) to celebrate our 30th anniversary. But they didn't realize that Ruggie (and another of our girls) had basically stopped eating and drinking.
But by the time we got home, Ruggie was extremely ill. It took a while, but we discovered that not only did she now have Congestive Heart Failure, but her kidneys were beginning to fail.
We started going to a specialist vet to see what could be done. It took a while (because there were other complications I'll talk about later), but the vet finally found the right combination of medications to keep Ruggie stable for as long as it is meant to be.
She takes many, many meds now. And her heart has become so large that it impinges on her trachea, which makes her cough.And she is aging much faster than normal. When you see her photos, you'll see that her chin has turned very grey and she doesn't see or hear as well as she used to.
But her daddy and I are crazy about her. She has an infectious personality. And we are determined to enjoy every day we have with her. She is a special girl!
SILVER LINING
Computer Painting courtesy of Buddy's Mom
We found Silvie's breeder from a rather well-known website. They are located in Texas. We were told all kinds of things about her--none of which turned out to be true.
She came to us at 12 weeks of age, with hundreds of fleas and ticks on her. We had had fleas occasionally before, but NEVER had any of our dogs EVER had ticks and it took us over a year to finally get rid of them!!
Also, this poor baby had scabs on her dew claws and her tail, which meant that these monsters in Texas had just recently taken care of removing them--when it is all supposed to be done at about 3 days or so!!
Kelvin and I were absolutely horrified!! We have always considered her our "rescue" dog, because we rescued her from these irresponsible breeders in Texas!!!!
Later, we found out that they had been shut down, but not for long. I'm sure they are back up and running again, so friends, please be VERY careful about who you go to when looking outside your local areas for your new puppies!!!
Once we got through these early problems, though, Silver turned out to be a terrific dog! (We called her Silver Lining, by the way, because we were going through a really bad patch in our lives and we desperately needed a Silver Lining to help us out of it!)
Silver turned out to be a very calm dog. She rarely barks (unlike our others), unless she is frustrated by something she wants and cannot get to it.
You may notice from her pictures that she has very short legs for a poodle. And she, too, has very shallow grooves in her back knees. But instead of making her go through that terrible procedure that Ruggie did, there is now a Physical Therapist in our area and Silvie has been going there to help strengthen her upper leg muscles so that she may not have to have the grooves deepened. She walks on an underwater treadmill for several minutes, while they adjust the speed and the depth of the water. And it has helped her tremendously.
So if you have a dog with luxating patellas, please check into this therapy in your area. It just might help your dogs, too.
All the other girls can jump up on the furniture. But for Silvie, we got those doggy stairs to help her up on the couches and bed.
You may also notice that she smiles a lot, which we love. And you can see that she has a very healthy appetite!! She is overweight and just hates to exercise or even go for walks. It's a struggle.
But she is a joy and a blessing in our lives!!
LADY IN RED
Computer Painting courtesy of Buddy's Mom
We got in touch with a wonderful breeder who is now in San Diego because we wanted a very tiny red-haired poodle for our next baby. We explained all the problems we had gone through with the first two to her and she talked to us a long time about how careful she was in her breeding. She keeps track of every dog and had for over 20 years at that time. We also spoke with her vet and found out how reliable a breeder this woman was.
And so we gave her a deposit, knowing that it might be a while before she had just the right baby for us.
Two years later (and we had forgotten all about her), and we were getting ready to move to a new house and bring my parents in to live with us, this breeder calls us and says that she may have the perfect puppy for us.One doctor came in and told us that we should let her go and we nearly killed him! It had ONLY been three weeks and our regular vet was not really to give up!!! It took some nerve to come in and do that to us!!p.They finally had to put her on a feeding tube or we would have lost her for sure.
We were about to take her to Davis, where they have a wonderful Veterinary School and they take dogs who can't be helped by their regular vets, when ours come up with and idea.
He offered to put in a tube directly into her tummy and we would be able to give her water and blended food every hour for a while, to try to get her stronger and then, later, if things went well, we could spread out the times a little.
He looked at us and asked if we were willing to commit to this kind of regimen. It had already cost us thousands of dollars (thank heavens for an equity line 2nd mortgage!!).But you see, we really had no choice. We had to say yes. 1) we loved this dog more than we could ever say. 2) Rugrat was failing at home --we had found out--because she was missing Lady so much (We always thought these two dogs HATED one another. But it turned out that it was a love/hate relationship and Ruggie was missing fighting with Lady so much that she had lost all her spirit. She was like an empty dog.) So we would have lost two dogs instead of just one. and 3) My mom was very ill at the time and we knew how much she loved Lady. We were afraid that if this little dog were to die, she would take it very hard.
So, we said YES, we were willing to commit to whatever regimen was needed to try to save Lady.
And that's what happened. She went through one more procedure and had this tube put in her side, leading right to the stomach. And for a while, every hour of the waking day, we would give her water and/or special liquid Renal food through the tube.
Lady was very weak for a long time, but was happy to be back home. Ruggie began to perk up. And over time, Lady got stronger. She began to gain some weight back.
There were good times and bad. One of the worst was coming home, after having just left her for a little over an hour and she had pulled the tube completely out of her stomach!!
So back to the hospital she went, and they decided on something different to put in, since she obviously hated that tube as much as she did.
It's sort of like a "pop top" and when it's watering time, we open it up and put a separate tube in there and take care of things. Then the tube is removed and the pop top is closed and she's free.
We're on a 2-hour schedule now. She gets water and then the next two she gets food and a little water, as well.
She's back to 3.5 lbs and she's a happy dog again. She runs and plays with her toys. She wrestles with Star and when her daddy comes home at night, she sings to him again!! That's the only way I can describe it. She sings in this high pitched voice, with many notes, as if she's trying to tell him about her day.
And it makes me cry every time I hear it and I think of all the times we almost lost her this past summer!!
It's not an easy life. We can't be gone very long from the girls. When we can, Lady comes with us, along with her food and water...But if anyone were to ask us if it was worth it...well, I think you all know the answer to that by now!!
STARRY NIGHT
Computer Painting courtesy of Buddy's Mom
And finally, we have our beautiful Starry Night.
We had just lost our two wonderful Bichons. They were mother and daughter. The daughter, Chapter Two, left us first. She had been 14. And her mother, Page One, passed away about 2 months later. She was nearly 16. And both my husband and I were broken-hearted!
It was a very sad time for us. And..I don't know..I found myself one day looking at puppy websites again. And my hubby saw it and he got this look on his face..He KNEW where this was heading!!
And we found a breeder we liked very much in Oklahoma. We talked with her for a long time about all the problems we had been through. And she, too, was a careful breeder. And she had a couple of puppies available. We weren't really looking for another black one, since we had Ruggie. But one of the puppies was irresistible.
She sent us such cute pictures of her. When you're watching the end of our slide show below, you will see a sequence of pics that are all of baby Star.
At the time, we didn't realize how appropriate her name was going to be. Her mother was white and her father was black. In all the photos we saw, she was a black dog. But when she got home to us (and as she has grown older), she has white hairs throughout the black--not thick, but just there. Like stars in a dark sky!!
Star has the sweetest, most loving personality you've ever seen. She is always ready with a kiss. She's so affectionate.
She's built a little lankier than the other girls and she's quite athletic. A dear friend of ours in Germany sent her a small rubber ball on her first Christmas with us, and that was it. Star was in love!!
And totally obsessed!! The Dog Whisperer would be very unhappy with us. This dog can play ball all day/all night and not get tired!! She just loves to run and chase it.
We often joke to friends about her: Yeah, we keep throwing the ball, but we never throw it far enough. She always comes back with it!! ;-)Star and Lady love to wrestle, otherwise they don't have much to do with each other. She's a very polite little girl and we're not sure why. We've never taught her to sit when we're taking her for a walk and we stop to talk with a neighbor, but she just does it.
And she sits and waits her turn for the treats we give. The other dogs have no manners at all. But our last little girl is a real polite sweetie!
So there you have our current little family. Kelvin and I are trying to sell our home now (what a terrible time for that, isn't it?!) And we're thinking of getting a larger poodle, maybe, if we end up with a big enough yard.
But for now, we have quite enough to handle with our four spoiled little babies!!
Not in my backyard
