Today is Trick's birthday! I can't believe that he's 8 years old already, it seems like just yesterday that we were making a trip to the vet for an emergency c-section.

We knew Karma was pregnant, and when she was palpated, Dr. Joe felt four pups. Karma looked big enough to be having 4 puppies, but she wasn't going into labor and she was past due. We spoke to Dr. Brian, and he thought it best we bring her in and get those pups out of here, so it was a kind of planned emergency surgery, at the end of the day, while all the staff was still there.

Dr. Brian opened her up, and said, "How many are supposed to be in here?" I told him, "4." "I think this one ate the others," he said! He handed me a HUGE male puppy who wasn't in any hurry to start breathing. I gave him a bit of a stimulant and started shaking him around, and he let out a big yell and was fine after that. The vet tech took one look at him and said, "Instead of a treat, you got a TRICK!" It was the perfect name, and it stuck.

Trick was one of the most beautiful pups I'd ever seen. Here is a picture of him at 8 weeks:



Just a couple of weeks later he was Best Puppy in Show at a local match show. He took lots of time off to grow and mature (he is a very big boy) and he finished his championship relatively quickly - he had quite a bit of time off between showings because he was such a headache to show - can we say stubborn? He has a twisted sense of humor, which is not surprising, considering who his mother was! He's mellowed quite a bit now and is less apt to leap on the couch when I'm on it, and other not so nice things.

Happy Birthday, Tricky-Bo! We hope you're with us for many more years!

One last note from Kathy, at Akita Rescue of Western New York...

....from us here at ARWNY:

Ms. Nancy informs me that she can take paypal raffle orders up until
Friday Nov 2nd for the Nationals Raffle, but can only accept fax or
snail mail until tomorrow, Friday Oct 26th.

Now, we only have 64 tickets left for the iWON Raffle -- so you might
want to get in on that early as we might be sold out before we even
get to the Nationals this year - you all really seemed to LIKE that
raffle, eh?

So last chance -- go to

http://www.akitarescuewny.com

and click on the raffle buttons you see there...

So don't say I didn't warn you when you get there that we might be
sold out before hand!! Get 'em early if you can -- fax or snail mail
and Paypal until tomorrow, then after that only PAYPAL until Nov.
2nd. Drawing will be held on Nov 3rd after judging -- you of course
do not need to be present to win!

Thanks as always for your help!!! We couldn't do this much Rescue
work without your support!!

Kathy D-ARWNY

Dylan is blowing coat. What a mess! It's a mess when any of the dogs blow coat, but Dylan has a very thick and stand off coat, and when he starts blowing, the shedding undercoat just hangs off his body in big clumps.

I have people ask me all the time about Akitas shedding - when I tell them that enough hair comes out to make about three small dogs, some look at me like I am surely exaggerating and that no dog could possible do that.

For all those non-believers out there, here is a photo of the fur that I combed out of Dylan today in 10 minutes. Yep, 10 minutes. And I'm not anywhere near done stripping him out!



It's hard to tell in the photo, but the middle part there is a good 6 inches high - lots of fur in that pile!

Yesterday we had a lot of rain...like downpours! And even though the dogs would go out for just a short period of time, when they came in they would be soaked. One of their games is to try to shake as close to a human as possible and see how wet they can get them. Another good game is to shake hard and get the floors wet and slick.

I was putting Dylan and Stormy away, and because I had been reading, I had my Crocs on instead of my usual sneakers. Dylan was quite wet, so I moved aside to try to avoid getting soaked as he rubbed against me on his way by. My left foot slipped off the horse matting we have on the floors in the dog area, and twisted and I saw stars! For a few minutes I thought I had broken my foot.

I hobbled into the house and put my foot up, but there wasn't any swelling or bruising at all - just pain! It didn't seem too bad at first, but after a couple of hours it was very painful and stiff. This is when you learn that having one bathroom on the second floor is really not a very smart way to design a house.

I iced it after Marc got home, but I couldn't tell that it helped much. I sat on the couch with my foot up on some pillows, and every dog had to come by and either sniff or knock into it at least once. How is it that they can hone in on any injured part of the body like they have radar? Anyway, it was a rather uncomfortable night.

It's a little better this morning, so I guess it is just sprained - I'll try to keep it elevated as much as I can today and hopefully in a couple of days I won't be gimping around here like a 90 year old man!