OK....This is ENOUGH!
I know Ron has been arguing with most of you. WE know that we did wrong by her (Gracie). We didn't come here to be called names and labeled as abusive dog owners. I would like to make a few point CLEAR!
1) Gracie has NEVER spent a night in the garage in a wire cage! She has never spent a night in the garage PERIOD! (If you feel the need to know...98% of the time she sleep in bed curled up to RON)
2) For those of you upset at Ron for putting her in her kennel with some poo on her...I understand. I can honestly say I wasn't really happy about that when he told me about it either. But.....it is what it is. If I had been awake...then YES, she would have been cleaned off...which means I HOPEFULLY would have noticed that she was a little more than "wet" on hind end. But there is also no guarantee that I would have thought too much about it. We didn't realize she would be delivering so early. (I say "early" because of when we THOUGHT she should deliver...she actually delivered right on time)
3) We are not now or ever have been a "animal abuser"! She is LOVED and VERY SPOILED...just like Crystal (our Yorkie we had for 14 yrs) was!
4) We did not plan on breeding her in her last heat cycle. Do to circumstances with myself and our kids being out of town and my husband at work our neighbors were helping to take care of our dogs. They did not know that she was in heat. We did not know that she was in heat until it was too late. So after the deed was done we started educating ourselves. Our PLAN was to do the education before we decided IF we would breed her or not. I'm sure that someone will take issue with the fact that we left our neighbors to care for our dogs....well, I'm sorry....I thought being taken care of by people that they KNEW and that loved them too would be better than boarding them with complete strangers to leave them wondering where we went and why. Atleast they were both still at home..together.
5) Gracie is NOT a breeding machine for MONEY! THAT'S SICK! We Love her! The one thing we wished we'd always had from Crystal was a pup from her. We were/are in NO WAY interested in becoming "breeders". Yes, our family started expressing interest in her pups when we found out she was indeed pregnant. We didn't know how many pups she would have...so yes, we were looking ahead at good homes for her babies IF she had a several.
6) As soon as we figured out what was going on we were on the phone with the Vet! We did EVERYTHING he told us to do! INCLUDING taking them both in to be checked out right away! I told him everything that gracie had been doing (behavior wise) and he said that it was ALL NORMAL! We gave her some fluids because the Vet said she was A LITTLE dehydrated. ALSO NORMAL! Also, for the person or people that keep saying that she was hiding her pup because she didn't trust Ron, please explain to my why she went in her kennel last night...picked up her pup and brought him TO RON. He picked the puppy and Gracie up and they all 3 sat on the couch together (with puppy and gracie in a blanket). Why would she do that if she feared his ability to care for her and her child?
7) For those of you that keep SCREAMING to spay our little girl.....you can simply go fly a kite. At this point in time we will NOT be spaying her. She will however in the future be spayed...but not because of YOUR opinions....but because..once again..we do NOT want to use her as a money making object!
This has been a VERY TERRIBLE way for us to learn things...that I openly admit! Please know that the ONLY reason I have spent MY TIME on here to justify ANY of these things is because I do NOT take kindly to being accused of animal abuse when I know in my heart, we did not abuse her! We did a very grave injustice to her and we know that! We are here looking for information and knowledge to make sure that something like this never happens again.
I hope I have made a few things clear that seemed to be getting blurred. I am in no way trying to "bag" on anyone or their opinions...I understand that you love your animals...so do we. I understand why you are upset with us...we're upset too. I understand that (hopefully) NO ONE would want to see a puppy (or mother) suffer...neither do we. We love our little girl and would never do anything to intentionally hurt her OR her puppies.
Thank you for your time in reading MY post.
Cassie |