We have had a really busy time recently, what with a trip to UK and then a trip to Palmerston North to have Phoenix's eyes operated on. However, while we were away in August, Sherry was taken to Auckland by Jan to be shown in the Golden Retriever Club shows - 2 shows on one weekend. Well, Sherry managed to come back with Baby Puppy in Show from both the shows, which was an excellent achievement. Below are photos of her at the show and at home with her winnings. Sherry also achieved three more Baby Puppy in Breed awards the following weekend at Wellington. Many thanks to Jan for all her efforts. (click to enlarge photos)    This is the critique that was written about her: Baby Puppy Bitch (1) 1st McNie's – Golden Light At Salhouse – Best Baby Puppy Good size young lady sweetest of heads, good pigment, kind eye, well angulated at front and rear, dead level topline, has good overall balance, moved out well for one so young, shows good promise. (click to enlarge photo)  Phoenix also has had a good and bad time. She has had an operation on her cataracts which we are hoping will be a success. The vet seems pleased with her and she should gradually begin to see over the next month or two, mainly out of her left eye. Her right eye was a problem under surgery and apparently will take a lot longer to improve. However, before we went to have the operation, Phoenix had drops in her eyes over the previous couple of days and that made her pretty much totally blind for a while and to be quite honest, that was a pretty scary thing for me and probably her too. It gave me an insight into what it would be like to look after a totally blind dog. Some dogs do really well and don't seem to bother much with their blindness. However, Phoenix is a very careful dog and doesn't like to bump into things or fall down stairs. She is quite cautious and during the time that she was pretty much totally blind you could see that she was struggling with finding her way around and trying to get down stairs. She uses her own techniques, like when she gets to near where she knows there are stairs she starts to take tiny little steps to "feel" the edge of the stairs and then she knows to go down. She obviously has a map in her head of the house and garden but occasionally during that time you could tell that she had lost her bearings and didn't quite know where she was. However, we all coped and now we hope she is on the road to recovery. She has some sight - mostly in the distance not close up - and we are keeping our fingers crossed for improvement each day. (click to enlarge photo)  |
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