Wednesday, July 20, 2016

More From The Rescue Doberman Puppies

As promised, today I will show you more photos of the three rescue Doberman puppies, that we took in on April, 24th this year. On the pictures published today they are about five week old and at that age they seem to grew visibly every day.



After play they often liked to huddle up with each other in their little den, a plastic box padded with towels, for warmth and comfort. On a whim at dinner with a friend we had given them their puppy names. So from the left to the right you see Lily, Princess and Elsa. The two black sisters looked so similar that we had a hard time telling them apart at that point. We solved this problem by putting little collars in different colors on them. Here you see Princess showing off her red one with white mini paw prints.



Even though all puppies were terrible cute, Elsa had the little "special something".



The black ones, Lily and Princess, were much stronger than Elsa and bullied her at times badly, which was not always fun to watch. They even didn't seem to mind teaming up against her. Doberman puppies can be so incredible rough with each other.



But there were many peaceful (means mainly sleepy) moments as well. But the visible scratch on Elsa's head tells about the other times.



Lily in play mode.



Princess and Lily having a go at each other.



Lily looking mischievously: "Mom, all these bones are mine."



Lily crashed after play.



Lily, deep asleep at one moment...



... and ready to go again in the next.



Drop dead tired sisters, Elsa can hardly keep her eyes open.



Because at that time Lily was such a rascal we got her a black collar with skulls and cross bones on it. At that age we had the puppies wearing the collars only every second day to be easy on their skin. That is why you always see only one puppy with a collar in all the photos where we captured all three of them together.



The pups ate like nothing else. At that age they got their puppy gruel five times within 24 hours. That meant feeding them about every five hours, day and night, because they were still so little without a mom providing a constant food source when they were hungry.

And of course shortly after they had been fed they needed to pee and poop. It is still unbelievable to me how often and how much these little puppies had to go potty, which required constant clean up.

You can imagine that was a quite intense time for my husband and I. It was equally wonderful as it was tiring. The constant sleep deprivation was the hardest for us. It didn't took long and it became clear to us that we needed help to raise them, otherwise it would have been impossible to keep doing our professional jobs.



It was really touching how eagerly they were seeking physical contact with us, I guess because my husband and I became a substitute for their mom.



Here you can see how hard the two black ones were to tell apart. That only goes for their looks, though. Temperament-wise, they were very different even at that young age.



Look at these cute paws and and nails!



In the meantime we tried to make sure to not neglect our two and a half year old red Dobie boy Skylar. While I took care of the puppies my husband went with him to the beach as often as possible. On this photo he is waiting impatiently for the tennis ball to be thrown, again.



Skylar wading through the cool water proudly carrying his tennis ball in his mouth.



Back to the puppies: They always fell asleep in the cutest positions.



Line-up of all three: A curious looking Elsa, a skeptical looking Princess and Lily in the back sound asleep.



Very typical for Princess, after being skeptical for a moment, she gets curious and comes over to investigate.



Cute, but at that time skinny and weak Elsa. We found out what most likely the cause for this was: She was full of roundworms! The backyard breeder told Susan Kelber, the woman, who initially rescued the puppies from him, that he had de-wormed them. But Susan was skeptical and decided to de-worm them herself just to be sure and we repeated the procedure 14 days later. Under our care alone at least six big nasty roundworms came out of Elsa's body! No wonder that the parasites limited her ability to take up nutrients. Things really got better from there and she started to catch up with the weight of her sisters. In the beginning we were really worried about Elsa, so you can imagine how relieved and thankful we were.  



Cute...



...and cuter!



I always found that Elsa was the one with the most expressive features.



Gosh those eyes,...



...but she knew too, like her sisters, how to put her baby canines to good use. After all they are Doberman girls!



A sleeping Princess.



Elsa feeling safe and content in daddy's arm.



At the age of eight and nine weeks Elsa and Princess got adopted. Both went to good homes and Elsa has an adult Dobie brother and Princess an adult Dobie sister to keep them company in their new life.

We kept Lily for ourselves, since we were looking for a second Dobie for us and a companion for our Doberman boy Skylar for a long time.  

Hope you enjoyed my second post about the rescue Dobie litter! If you have missed the first one please click here and it will take you there. I will continue to post about the rescue puppies and show you how they grew and matured. 

As always thanks for stopping by! I also would like to welcome my new followers, I am very happy that you have decided to read my posts on a regular basis!

Warm regards,

Christina



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Monday, July 4, 2016

Bringing The Roses In

Usually I am pretty reluctant to cut roses for bringing indoors and prefer to enjoy them in the garden, but with the summer heat upon us, things have changed a little. A rose bloom that is lovely in the early morning easily is fried by noon, so by cutting them and bringing them into the air conditioned house I actually prolong their life and have a better chance to appreciate their beauty up close.



So on Thursday last week I went out with the secateurs and came across these two flowers of rosa 'Bewitched'. All I needed to do is putting them in a simple glass vase and place them on the mantle of our fireplace and they brightened up my day.



The blooms of 'Bewitched' are ideal for cutting, if you like the classic Hybird Tea rose flower form.



Almost each bloom of this rose comes out perfectly and has the great damask fragrance, that I love so much.



A day later on Friday, the roses looked like this. They were so much more open and had reached the perfect stage. I was surprised how fast they unfolded even in the air conditioned house, but we don't turn up the air condition very high, so our house does get warm.



Rosa 'Bewitched' has a lovely shade of clear pink, that is not garish in any way, just soft and feminine...



...and very elegant blooms.



I got such a ridiculous amount of joy out of these two roses, that I had to share them with you. They are still sitting on the mantle today, but are fading beauties by now. Considering the pleasure that they brought me, I intend to change my attitude and cut some roses for indoors more often.

Talking about this, it reminds me that Cathy from the blog Rambling in the Garden each week on Monday encourages people to go out into their gardens and cut some flowers for the house. My roses are cut last week Thursday, but I hope she and the other participants of this meme don't mind. Because of my work I am never able to cut flowers, photograph and do a blog post about them within a day. So today I take my chances and will take part in this meme for the first time.

I am off now to Cathy's blog to see what she has in her vase today and also admire the creations of the other participants of this meme. Would you like to follow me? Please click on the link above or below this post.

Wishing my American readers a happy 4th of July!

See you in the Garden!

Christina



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