A little bit about me.

Although I haven't seen my pedigree written down yet, I am told my father is Koktobel de Grande Vinko, who is the son of Oksamit de Grande Vinko with an outstanding pedigree. My father's pedigree can be seen at:

http://ingrus.net/dober/en/details.php?id=13051

My mother is called Gimena and a wonderful mother she was giving us all the care and attention she could.

Margaret and Colin, came to check out my mother and her surroundings 2 weeks before I was born.

My mother is the dobe to the right in the photo above, the other is her sister, Pandora lying on Colin's feet, who was to give birth in 4 weeks time being pregnant by my father, although my mother was the better of the two.

And so we were born on 17th July. José, the breeder, sent photos to Margaret and Colin.

I'm probably in that photo somewhere.

Here's the bit I find strange. Originally Margaret and Colin said they wanted a female. When we were born 2 of us were black and 4 of us were brown so one of my brown sisters was assigned to them. Her name was Sasha. 

This was the name Margaret and Colin had chosen. They stated that they did not want the ears cut but agreed to have the tail docked so Sasha was the only one in the litter not to have her ears operated on. Margaret and Colin even visited us and saw Sasha 12 days after we had been born.

As you can see from the photo above, Sasha almost had her eyes open. 

José sent photos of us regularly to Margaret and Colin...

...and he sent short video clips...

...so they could see how we were progressing.

Then, the day before Margaret and Colin were due to collect Sasha, she escaped from our box and ate all of our mother's food. She became very ill and had to be taken to the local veterinary surgery where she had an operation on her intestines.

A couple of days later, while Sasha was still in the hospital, Margaret and Colin arrived and chose me instead. I'm a male, they initially wanted a female, and I've got my ears clipped which they chose not to have done. But, they chose me and I am here now.

Exploring the house

Here's a selection of photos of me taken from when I first came to this house in mid September up to a more recent one taken at the end of October.

In the photo above I had just had my ears operated on and when mum and dad got me my ears were still healing and looked a bit rough. You can also see the remains of the glue used by the vet to keep my ears stuck to the top of my head.

All of these photos are in chronological order so you can see how I have grown in the last 6 weeks.

When I first arrived I was 5.3 kg, now I weigh over 11 kg!

There's plenty of this house to explore and I am gradually finding my way around.

There are lots of places to pose for the camera.

My dad never misses a chance to take a photo of me.

For the photo above my dad placed me on top of the coffee table he had been working on for the last few months. I'm not allowed to be up there at any other time.

Just this last week my ears have started to stand up all by themselves or at least one of them has. Normally they have to be "posted" and taped up for a while but I don't fancy that.

A scan to confirm my little problem

We turned up at the vets for my appointment with the specialist with his little machine. Although being on the diuretic pills for the last 10 days hadn't really caused a problem, for some reason I couldn't stop peeing everywhere while I was being examined!

The specialist was very good because he quickly diagnosed me by looking at his screen which was just a maze of blurry images of my heart. I've got PDA - you can find out about it by clicking HERE.

Basically, there's a tube connecting the aorta to the pulmonary artery which sort of by-passed my heart when I was in my mother's womb but when I was born, it should have closed automatically - mine didn't. 

I have an appointment for the operation on Thursday 9th November. If it goes well, as it should, I will be up and running around in no time with more energy than my mum or dad will be able to cope with!

I'm on 3 different tablets at the moment, at least the diuretic, Seguril, has been reduced. One of the others is Cardisure, used in the treatment of heart failure to prevent my heart from giving out before the operation. The third one is Sildenafil, used in my case to treat pulmonary arterial hypertension but generally known as Viagra for treating erectile dysfunction but I haven't got round to needing it for that just yet. 

Now, I just have to keep going for one more week.

Meeting new friends

Apart from getting to know my mum and dad I have met lots of people and animals in the last few weeks.

Just last week 2 friends from England, Fiona and Justin, came to stay and I enjoyed playing with them.

I've got a lot to live up to but I'm working on it. Before I appeared on the scene my mum and dad had another Doberman, a female called Hona. Dad even has a photograph of her on one of his t-shirts!

Two friends I'm not so sure about yet are these two in the photos below. They live in the same house as mum and dad. Jasper, the cat at the left is fine and I enjoy chasing him...

...but the other one, Amber, who is quite an old cat, around 15 human years, isn't very friendly so I keep my distance from her.

There is so much to find out about, sometimes it is quite exhausting just trying to keep up.

The photo above and the 2 below were taken when I was 10½ weeks old when I met...

...some more friends at our other house in Vinaròs.

I have found that the best way to get to know people is to get a feel or taste of them in my mouth.

Unfortunately, as my teeth are new and rather sharp people don't seem to like this approach. My dad says he can't wait for me to start chewing on animal bones as that will take the edge off them!

And then it all went wrong...

Life was so good, I was having so much fun and mum and dad were always wanting to play with me even though at times I didn't have all the energy I needed, even a walk around the garden was more than sufficient but I put this down to the fact that I was a very young puppy and so did mum and dad who were very understanding.

And then it all went wrong.

On the night of Sunday 15 October I found it harder and harder to breath, I couldn't put my head down or if I did I felt as though I was drowning. Sure enough, mum and dad took me to the veterinary surgery first thing on Monday morning and the wonderful people there quickly diagnosed what I needed - oxygen! I was also given a diuretic injection which caused me to pee virtually non-stop.

My problem was that I had liquid on my lungs but at last I could put my head down. I spent the remainder of the day recovering and I felt fine later in the afternoon so mum and dad came back and took me home. I had been prescribed diuretic pills so that the water would not accumulate as I would get rid of it by peeing more. 

I was to return to the vets for a scan by a specialist on Friday 27th October.