for the love of dog... MERLiN turns seven !

February is almost over... and Oh my goodness... Merlin is now seven years old !

HAPPY BiRTHDAY MERLiN !

Merlin has never been 'fully featured' on my blog before... so I'm fixing that right now as 1 of his birthday presents !

I think, though, that he's really pleased that i got him a new donut for his big day... in fact, he's over the moon about it... *especially* since this one SQUEAKS... and oh my goodness me... that just thrills him to no end !

This is the look that he gets on his face when he has ME chasing after him. You see Merlin is very good at the Fetch part... but he just LOVES to keep his toy and have me come after it. Oh.. he'll 'Drop it' once I get close enough... but... really he just loves the chase... ME after HiM !!!

SiGH... Story of my life ! Actually we have a lot of fun... it's like playing Tag. THiS year I told him that this would need to change... he would need to begin coming towards ME before i would give him a counter move. Its working... more or less. The year is young. lol.

For the love of dog... I found Merlin (& his sister Nimue) at the vets when they were only a few days old. Mom, a German Shepherd, had rejected the entire litter... five survived and only because of human intervention... The five were split up into two groups and two wonderful vet techs bottle fed them and took them home each night... Merlin & Nimue were in seperate groups but as soon as I was able to secure a promise to their adoption... they began to spend time together at the clinic. I went to visit them several times a week and we all waited until they were 3 months old before they could come home with me. They were my first puppies... omg !

Merlin's puppy hood was fraught with challenges... the first one developed immediately... an overbite which meant surgery within several weeks of his little life... in order to remove some of his bottom teeth as they were impaling his pallet.

When he was less than six months old... Merlin developed issues with his back due to jumping out of my pick up truck as i was backing up very slowly doing landscaping around the property. He just seemed to always have some misfortune after another... I remember one time as he was licking the spaghetti colander- the handle got hooked to his collar and he went running around the property convinced that 'the evil thing' was after him ! Same thing happened with a piece of string... and off he went. poor little guy !

I think the most traumatic thing that happened to him though was when the vet sedated him in order to take an x-ray of his hips... he had an adverse reaction to one of the drugs and collapsed in the car whilst we were driving home. I pulled to the side of the road... he had stopped breathing... I gave him mouth to mouth and dumped half a bottle of Rescue Remedy in him. He revived and we drove back to the vets for a recheck. His gums were so pale... he had evidently gone into anaphylectic shock. We stayed at the vets for a couple of hours... he was so terrified of getting back into the car.

So... we had to take things easy with Merlin for a long time... We finally did puppy training when he was a year old... i knew the trainer and she was very sympathetic to our cause. We did better than i thought we would !

I was fortunate enough to take a Homeopathic ER workshop at the SF School of Homeopathy... and introduced Merlin when discussing anaphylectic shock... Soon after and via email I corresponded to the teacher about him. She and her 3rd year students studied his case and found his constitutional remedy. Nux Voc has and continues to be most helpful in assisting him with his day to day challenges.

Merlin remains a shy, hyper-sensitive, over-excitable boy... he has a heart of gold that melts my very own. I have and will forever be accepting and welcoming his exuberant dog kisses... YES !!! shocking as it may seem I kiss my dogs and... I also sleep with them too... lol...

For the love of dog... I wouldn't have it any other way !