I would like to take this time to talk about raising a puppy since birth.
Our first family dog was Laura when we got her 10 years ago. At that time, a dog was a dog, we didn't even know what a notorious name a rottweiler had in Malaysia when we got Laura! Rosie wanted a dog, and we got her one that we all loved so dearly. I'm so sure that there are very few rottweilers in the world that are so tolerant, so well behaved, so patient, beautiful, kind, sweet, I could go on forever!
Never have we imagined getting a sheltie. That was Rosie's dream when she was older.
And least of all, never did we imagine we'd become 'parents' to a newborn pup! Unluckily we did not witness the birth of Eva but having her grow up in our house, watching her every day learning something, there's something very beautiful about it.
At the beginning, we were so worried that Eva without littermates would be different, unusual, weird.
That is true in some ways, she hasn't learnt how to self defend herself, play with puppies, bring them down, ask for attention - luckily for us, she learnt that during the 6 days Sweetheart was with us. Raising her has never been easy. We've been through happy times, funny times, also many sad, heartbreaking ones.
Last week, we realised that treating her like a puppy, like our cuddly toy will only make her behaviour worse. Her adolescent period (now) has been one of the hardest times we've been through with her. This week, we've decided to start from the basics again.
For example, whenever she gave us her 'moody' face, we used to try to comfort her. Then we learnt ... it's her face she puts up - that she's bullying us. So we ignored her. Few days later, she's back to her normal happy self.
Another thing we learnt from Sweetheart when she came was that she would always come and ask for attention because living with so many littermates, you have to fight for what you want. Eva gets it without asking for it. That's why she never bothers to come to us and even worse, if we pat her, it's like the most uncomfortable thing in her life and she'll walk away from us. We're still working on this but at the moment if Eva doesn't want to come, I'll leave her alone until she wants the attention.
We really wish she could be good like her grandma, or even better like her mother but we can't ask for that because she's who she is. All we can do is mould her into a better dog with a better personality. We just hope that our 'inexperience' with raising pups hasn't had too huge and bad an effect on our beloved girl.
The thing that worries us most are her hind legs. As many of you may know, they are very weak and we've been keeping her on grass, and mats. All we can do is hope and pray that it will not be too serious when she's older. We don't know where to take her swimming which apparently is the best exercise, our facilities here do not have hydrotherapy or water treadmills!
Each problem will always lead to the next, but having Eva, our miracle has been a very exciting journey in our life, and we hope to share our journeys with you all always.
