Another dog, another milestone

*please excuse the long post!*

Here are our experiences with having four dogs, and how each dog is another huge milestone.

Our first dog Laura, was, you could say, a very easy dog to care for. At that time, we knew next to nothing about dogs, not to mention rottweilers! Well, all we knew was that we had to feed the dog and give it a home. Training dogs was a different language to us. So many things were unknown to us 'newbie' dog owners.

Luckily for us, Laura proved to be an easy dog to care for. She didn't need much attention, and she didn't behave badly at all. For the first 5 years or so, we didn't know much. We faced no huge challenges - no health problems, behaviour problems, etc. About 3 years ago, Rosie became more interested in the outside dog world. She learnt more and more about dogs, not just knowing what breeds they were, but more about the rottweiler itself, and she shared it with us. It was when Laura was about 8 years old when Rosie wanted another dog to keep Laura company. That's when we adopted Mika.

Mika came to us at 8 months, a healthy dog. Then soon after, by the time he was 1 year old, we had lots and lots of trouble with him. Although he was neutered, it didn't mean he wouldn't stop marking his territory EVERYWHERE! He was extremely dominant and had bullied us a lot (although now he's learnt who's boss!). Then came his eye problem - we have to clean his eye everyday with medication because he has something called Dry Eye Disease. And later his yeast infection which at first, we couldn't fight, but now we know what to do. Everytime it dies down, you can't expect his skin to be fully recovered because soon after, it will come back. The poor boy hates his 1.5hour showers now!

During the time Mika came to us, Rosie's research grew, she started wanting and learning about lots and lots of different breeds from huskies, german shepherds, bernese mountain dogs, shelties, etc.  From that research came Hana (and we can't blame her for it!).

With Hana, we learnt how unbelievably beautiful, gentle and loving a dog can be. I learnt how to groom a dog (especially shelties with all that fur!) and how grooming really promotes healthy looking fur. We also learnt the miracles of puppy birth and the craziness of taking care of a newborn pup and raising it! We also learnt the pain of losing your loved one too soon.

Enter Princess Eva the pup who so far has gotten the most love and affection from humans so far!
I learnt how to housetrain a pup and obedience train her and how to play with her and give her kisses.
Then we learnt more when she got her cowhocks and hip problem and tried to confine her to non-slippery floors and what supplements to give. We also realised that some dogs (namely Eva) are CRAZY about cars, motorcycles, vacuum cleaners, oven doors, and breadmakers!

We also learnt that each and every one of our dogs is COMPLETELY and utterly different from the rest. 

We've never had a naughtier yet sweeter dog than Eva. But owning a dog, it's all a huge learning process for everyone, I'm sure you'll all agree.

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