26 April 2006

under the knife, for the third time

Penguin is going in for spay surgery tomorrow morning. She's eight years old now, well past "advanced maternal age" for dogs, and our one and only attempt to breed her was unsuccessful. We know our next Clumber will be a male, whenever that might be, and the house doesn't lend itself to easy segregation, so with the planets finally aligned, the surgery is scheduled.

Pen isn't wild about spending any time at the vet since 2002, when she managed to require two foreign body removal surgeries in a span of five months. Our vet, who I adore and is the person I would most like to take out for a pint, offered to do the surgery as her first procedure of the day, thus giving us a chance of being able to take her home tomorrow and sparing her an overnight at the vet. I just hope those planets remain properly aligned and it all goes to plan. They will send her home based on how well she is coming off anesthesia.

WW update: A successful day first day on program. I didn't use any weekly points and ended up with 2 activity points unused, thanks to a 40 minute walk at lunchtime. I really like using eTools for journaling. I didn't realize it had lots of meal suggestions. While I am not likely to ever use them as is, I did like seeing the suggestions it could offer.

Update, 3pm on Thursday: Pen is out of surgery and doing fine. They got a late start so she won't be going home tonight.

5 comments:

ClumberKim said...

I'll ask her to get back to you on that.

ninjapoodles said...

Well-wishes to Penguin...what a special bitch. Too bad she wasn't able to become your "foundation" (if you even wanted to breed, which you may not). Looks like she is truly a fine specimen!

We are just newbie breeders still, really. We just found out that the first show puppy we sold just finished his championship at 11 months of age, winning almost every weekend he went out. I wish all mine would go that quickly! So now we have our first "homebred" champion. It's a neat thing.

ClumberKim said...

Congratulations on your first homebred champion!! I'm told the only thing better is your first bred-by-exhibitor champion. (The judge at our national this year said it was a good thing Oliver had not been in that class or she would have had a much harder time...very sweet lady.)

We did try to breed Pen, about a week after finding out I was pregnant, but it didn't take, a common problem in Clumbers. We later found out she had a low functioning thyroid, another common problem in Clumbers, so it is probably just as well.

No rush on us having puppies...we're going to work on our "other" breeding program for a bit.

Unknown said...

So glad Pen's surgery went fine. Woo woos and face licks all around, and best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Sherman and Luka (and their mama)

Pinterest Failures said...

Hope Penguin is doing well. Congrats on Day 1 of WW. I need to get back on the WW Wagon as I have lapsed the past few months.