Saturday, February 14, 2009

PERPETUAL FEEDING

Nellie is a sporadic eater. We usually give her a cup of chow in the morning and then two to three cups supper. Regardless, she likes to have some food in her dish most of the time, so we thought she was a good candidate for a perpetual feeder. A couple of months ago we bought one for her. Measuring her food into the tank, we counted enough food for about ten days. It seemed to work well initially, but as time went on, we noticed she was eating more often and the food in the tank was lasting barely a week. Naturally, she was also gaining weight. We had lost the ability to gauge her food and control her eating, so we returned to the old-fashioned dish method.

Nellie had a "procedure" last Tuesday. Last year the vet told Mike that for Nellie's health he should either breed her or have her spayed, so we thought hard about breeding her. She's a good pet as well as a decent hunter. You naturally want to perpetuate good traits. But, if all goes as expected, it's too soon to be thinking about our next dog and selling pups in this economy might be difficult. Also, we aren't dog breeders, aren't equipped for it, and we live in two places. So, we had Nellie spayed. This picture was taken Thursday when she was still convalescing. She's feeling her old self today, thank you.

5 comments:

debdog42 said...

How old is Nellie?

murray.warnock said...

I'm sure it was the right decision, but I'm already missing the puppy posts we'll never see.

Did Nellie have to wear the cone collar again to keep her from bothering her stitches?

Kathy said...

Nellie was born 9-11-2003 -- she's five. We got her from an individual in Tri-Cities. She was the last unsold female in that litter of pups. We were just glad to find her and it has worked out well.

Yes -- I wouldn't have minded the puppy antics. That part would have been fun. It's also fun to watch the mama dog train up her young-us and wean them.

She did not have a cone collar. There were no stitches on her belly. I think they super-glued her. She licks her belly some -- not much.

Hallie said...

Mom: You could scan the photos I took of Nobie litter #1 and we could all pretend that it's just happening (we'll also be pretending that your back yard has grass).

Kathy said...

They were cute little girls. Remember the evening your dad deemed them old enough to go to the kennel with Nobie. The doorbell rang and a neighbor apprised us that the little girls were playing out front unsupervised. Like Peter Rabbit, they had squeezed through the the fence. As they approached the age of independence, they would drive Nobie nuts. She would open the kennel gate just to get away from them.